The Coronavirus Impact on Social Security - Independent Institute
It’s certainly no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the U.S, economy, with tens of millions of workers joining the ranks of the unemployed, consumer spending disappearing, and many employers likewise disappearing. Although the U.S. financial markets are recovering somewhat, there’s a more subtle long-range impact on Social Security beginning to take shape…a much earlier point for depletion of the system’s trust fund reserves. Craig Eyermann, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, takes a look at this emerging catastrophe in a post on The Beacon, the Institute’s blog page.
Eyermann comments on a Bipartisan Policy Center projection that Social Security’s retirement trust funds will be fully depleted in less than eight years, even earlier than the Social Security’s Trustees’ worst-case estimates. Eyermann suggests the reasons are clear: fewer workers contributing FICA tax revenue, and more of the unemployed filing for benefits earlier to make ends meet. Eyermann closes out his post with this terse summation: “The coronavirus pandemic has moved up Social Security’s day of reckoning.” Read the post here…