Social Security: Let’s Look at Some of the Key Myths - The Motley Fool
The potential for Social Security reform is starting to gain momentum in the 118th Congress, and several of our posts over the past several weeks on this site have covered signs of forward motion on this vexing issue. Given the likelihood that legislators will finally take a serious look at the problem, now is a good time to first dispel a few of the more persistent myths and misunderstandings that have become pervasive over the past few years. A post by Matthew Frankel, CFP appearing on The Motley Fool website explores three of the more prevalent of these untruths, beginning with the glaring misunderstanding that Social Security is “broke.”
As Frankel points out, Social Security’s trust fund reserves, as officially reported to Congress each year, had accumulated a nearly $3 trillion balance at the end of last year. His second item further explains the real dilemma–that Social Security is operating at a deficit as of 2021–a fact that will cause this reserve to be depleted in little more than a decade unless corrective action is taken. Finally, Frankel’s article discusses the false belief that massive cuts in benefits are the only way to address the problem.
Frankel’s post, which you can read in full here, closes with the optimistic note that corrective action can address the problem and ward off a collapse of this critical senior support system. In fact, our headline post yesterday on this site addressed that very point. Watch for continuing dialog on this critical matter in the weeks and months ahead.