America's Vanishing Trust Fund

Social Security hits its peak this year. To replenish, it may need to take out loans

- By Joel Weber and Howard Chua-Eoan

A monthly check from Social Security is the only thing keeping millions of older Americans out of poverty. Half of married senior citizens and 70% of unmarried seniors get at least half of their income from it, according to the Social Security Administration. It’s the indispensable retirement solution. But the trust fund that pays old age and survivor benefits is going to run out of money sometime in the 2030s.

Those hard facts have raised a question: Should Social Security stop depending just on payroll taxes and the trust fund to pay benefits and start supplementing those sources with general tax revenue? The debate came to a boil in August, when President Trump floated the idea of a permanent cut in payroll taxes, which would presumably necessitate a big infusion of general tax revenue to keep beneficiaries whole.

A lot of advocates for Social Security worry that tapping general revenue will make people perceive the program as welfare rather than a mutual insurance compact among workers. Democratic Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, responded to Trump’s gambit with an Aug. 14 statement saying, “Make no mistake: This is an attempt to undermine Social Security entirely.”