Social Security trust fund's projected insolvency date moves up a year – report

The main Social Security trust fund now has a projected depletion date of 2033, one year sooner than last year's projection, according to the latest Social Security trustees' annual report.

If the trust fund were to become depleted, the fund's income would be sufficient to pay 76% of its scheduled benefits, said the report issued Tuesday.

Collectively, the Social Security trust funds — one that covers retirees and their families and one that covers disabled workers and their families — will be out of money by 2034. On its own, the disability insurance trust fund is projected to be depleted in 2057 — eight years sooner than last year's estimate.

The report includes the trustees' best estimates of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing recession, which were not reflected in last year's report. The trustees noted that employment, earnings, interest rates, and gross domestic product dropped substantially in the second quarter of 2020 and are assumed to rise gradually toward recovery by 2023.

"The pandemic and precipitous recession have clearly had significant effects on the actuarial status of the (trust funds), and the future course of the pandemic is still uncertain," the report stated. "The trustees will continue to monitor developments and modify the projections in later reports."

Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in a statement that it's "welcome news that Social Security seems to have largely weathered the storm, but we're still just over a decade away from trust fund depletion, and the measures required to restore solvency will only become more severe. The failure by policymakers to address this challenge is simply unfair to the millions of Americans who are either on the program or planning their retirement in the years to come."

The financial shortfall for the combined trust funds is now $19.8 trillion in present value over the next 75 years, up from $16.8 trillion in last year's report.

In the report, the trustees recommend that lawmakers address the projected trust fund shortfalls in a timely way in order to phase in necessary changes gradually and give workers and beneficiaries time to adjust to them. "Implementing changes sooner rather than later would allow more generations to share in the needed revenue increases or reductions in scheduled benefits," the report stated.