Thoughts on the Plight of Social Security
Just about everyone affected by Social Security is aware that the program is facing a rough financial road in the years ahead, with the current operational deficit causing mounting concern about what will happen when the program’s trust fund reserves are depleted in little more than a decade from now. Many news sources have seized on this issue with articles that describe the program in desperate terms, using descriptors like “going broke’ and “bankruptcy” that tend to grab the attention of readers.
Yes, Social Security is in a precarious position and, yes, there’s the potential for an across-the-board cut in benefits if Congress fails to take action to address the long-term funding shortfall in time. But there is some cause for optimism, as indicated in a post today by The Motley Fool’s Selena Maranjian on channel3000.com, since many potential fixes have been identified, and since the trust fund exhaustion projection is still more than a decade off in the future.
Ms. Maranjian outlines a few of these potential corrective measures in her article, and also adds commentary about Social Security’s inability to keep pace with the steadily growing living costs faced by seniors. For those not yet drawing retirement benefits, she adds a link to a related article describing what future beneficiaries can do while there’s still time to maximize their benefits.
Included in Ms. Maranjian’s article–which you can access here—is a call to action for readers to urge their congressional representatives to take action to preserve Social Security, something that many senior advocacy organizations–including the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC)–have long promoted. In fact, AMAC for many years has stressed the viewpoint that Social Security must be preserved and modernized, suggesting that this can be achieved with no tax increases by making a few structural changes to the program’s internal provisions. In fact, AMAC advocates for a bipartisan compromise, “The Social Security Guarantee Act,” taking selected portions of bills introduced by former Rep. Johnson (R-TX) and current Rep. Larson (D-CT) and merging them with the Association’s own research. AMAC has been resolute in its mission and has gotten the attention of lawmakers in DC, meeting with a great many congressional offices and their staffs over the past several years. Read AMAC’s plan here.