The Social Security Solvency Dilemma in Numerical Perspective - The Motley Fool

As we’ve pointed out in several headline posts on this site over the past few weeks, the 117th Congress will hopefully set a high priority on addressing Social Security’s impending solvency problem. After all, while it’s not a new issue, it’s clear that the political world cannot kick the can much farther down the road. In fact, the most recent “official” projection for the complete depletion of the program’s trust fund is 2035, although most insiders know the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought this date many years forward. And 2021 is forecast to be the tipping point for the downhill slide to a complete absence of reserve funding. Unless, of course, corrective action is taken.

The Motley Fool’s Sean Williams, in a post today on their site, characterizes 2021 as the year in which Social Security will pass a “dubious” milestone, with cash outlay outstripping available revenue for the first time since the 1980s. The shortfall is projected by the program’s Trustees to be over $20 million, growing to an annual net deficit of approaching a quarter of a billion dollars in six years. When the reserves are completely gone, the program will necessarily rely on only the incoming revenue from payroll taxes and income taxes on the benefits paid out. The result, of course, is that benefits will be reduced to account for the drop in revenue, with estimates of the cut exceeding 20% across the board.

Williams’s article, which you can read here, provides a refresher on the origin of this solvency problem, along with a summary of Joe Biden’s plan to address it. The Biden plan, as discussed in a prior post on this site, is not a long-term solution to the problem, but rather an interim approach to delaying the inevitable. The Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) has long recognized this problem and its potentially severe impact on Seniors, and has been resolute in its quest for a solution. AMAC’s Social Security Guarantee has been consistently advanced in Washington as a bipartisan solution to resolving the long-term crisis. You can review this legislative framework proposal here.

 

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