Overview

• Social Security Trustees project trust funds will be exhausted by 2033–34, triggering automatic benefit cuts of about 20–25% without congressional intervention.
• President Trump marked the program’s 90th anniversary by proclaiming new legislation that exempts most seniors from taxes on Social Security income.
• Analysts say a temporary deduction for seniors in July’s tax and spending law reduces trust-fund revenue and modestly accelerates the insolvency timeline.
• The Social Security Administration has cut more than 7,000 staff positions this year, leading to office closures, longer wait times and processing backlogs.
• Lawmakers remain deadlocked over competing solutions—including lifting the payroll-tax cap, a bipartisan investment fund and raising the retirement age—while privatization talk has resurfaced.