Overview

• Trustees’ latest report moved the depletion date up one year to 2034, underscoring a faster cash shortfall than projected in 2024.
• Without congressional action, retirement payouts could be cut by nearly 25 percent in less than a decade.
• President Trump’s mass deportation proposals and tariff policies risk accelerating the trust’s decline by shrinking the payroll tax base and raising cost-of-living adjustments.
• A Pew Research poll shows 79 percent of Americans, including 77 percent of Republicans, oppose any reduction in Social Security benefits.
• Legislative options range from the Republican Study Committee’s plan to raise the retirement age and curtail high-earner payouts to the Warren-Sanders Expansion Act’s payroll tax on incomes over $250,000 that would boost monthly benefits by $200.