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Trustee’s Report confirms: SS Benefit Cuts are on the horizon (unless Congress acts soon)! - Fortune
The Trustees of Social Security do an annual assessment of the Social Security program’s financial health, and the 2026 report (which reflects status as of the end of 2025) was finally released recently on June 9th. Disturbingly, the program’s financial outlook has only worsened.
For many years, the Trustees have warned Congress that program reform is needed to avert cuts in SS benefits in about the mid-2030s, specifically in about 2035. But each of the last several reports have predicted a worsening situation, with the latest report predicting an across the board cut of 22% in everyone’s SS benefit in 2032 unless Congress finally takes action to reform the program.
Reality is that Social Security revenue has been less than needed to pay 100% of SS benefits since about 2020. Since then, the reserves held in the Social Security Trust Funds have been used to pay full benefits, but those reserves will be fully depleted in about 2032. If that happens, the program will be forced to pay out only what is received in revenue, which will result in a benefit cut for everyone. But, that doesn’t need to happen! Congress is fast running out of options to reform the program (the longer they wait, the harder it will be to fix). This Fortune magazine article by John Diamond explains the problem, recalls the history of a past 1983 solution, and emphasizes that Congressional bipartisan ship will be key to solving Social Security’s current financial woes.
As an example of leading thinking on reforming Social Security, the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC, Inc.) believes Social Security must be preserved and modernized to serve future generations. AMAC’s position is that this can be achieved without payroll tax increases through relatively minor program modifications, including changes to the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) process and modifications to the formulas for calculating initial benefits for higher-income beneficiaries. Changes to the age for maximizing benefits are included in AMAC’s position, along with (1) an increase in the thresholds where benefits are subject to income tax; (2) indexing of these thresholds annually to account for inflation; (3) changing the taxable maximum formula to address the unintended loss of revenue; (4) improving survivor benefits, (5) eliminating the reduction in benefits for those choosing to work before full retirement age; and (6) improving savings tools for future retirees, including a savings account that builds estate value. AMAC is resolute in its mission that Social Security be preserved for current and successive generations and has gotten the attention of lawmakers in D.C., meeting with many congressional offices and staff over the past decade. See AMAC’s proposal for Social Security reform here.