Headlines
Citizen Activists Join the Fight to Ward Off Social Security Insolvency
In an interesting display of public attention to the looming insolvency problem facing Social Security, union representatives and retiree activists in Wisconsin are focusing on the program’s current operations and its future. For the past two months, a regiment of…
Dispelling the rumors
We have all seen those social media posts warning that Social Security benefits will cease to exist in 2035; they are false. What is true is that even if Congress does nothing about the insolvency issue, Social Security will still…
Will Medicare Part B premiums wipe out COLA
After the government released the inflation rate for April, Social Security analysts began to estimate the cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) for 2025. As you may know, the Social Security Administration bases its COLA each year on average annual increases in CPI-W from…
Counting on Social Security
The 2024 Social Security Trustee report found if Congress does not act, the combined trust fund reserves will be depleted by 2035. At that time, the income coming into the program will only be able to pay 83 percent of the…
Retirement benefits of a HSA
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) were established as part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 8, 2003, effective January 1, 2004. In the twenty years since the creation…
The two problems with COLA
The Social Security Administration calculates the COLA by comparing the average of the CPI-W for July, August, and September of the previous year with the average for the same three-month period in the current year. The percentage change is the…
Social Security’s Insolvency: Is it Time to Self-Insure?
This week’s issue of the 2024 Social Security Trustees Report product with it a mixed message–a slight improvement in the date for total depletion of the program’s financial reserves, along with a reminder that the program remains on a path…
As the Dust Settles from Monday’s Trustees Report, Here Are Some Important Facts
It’s been an exciting few days since the 2024 Social Security Trustees Report was released, at least for those who follow this topic closely. Report after report has explored the upsides and downsides of the newest projections for the trust…
Fixing Social Security: Traditional Approachdes Vs. Something Radically Different
The 2024 Social Security Trustees Report, despite the euphoria rampant in the minds of many pundits, simply continued what has been known for decades–the system is in serious trouble. And as we’ve been trumpeting on this site for the past…
2024 Social Security Trustees Report Published–Shows One-Year Improvement in Solvency
The 2024 edition of the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program (Trustees Report) was issued yesterday afternoon. As noted in SSA’s press release announcing the report on 2023’s operations, “The combined asset reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance…