Читать книгу Social Security For Dummies - Peterson Jonathan, Jonathan Peterson - Страница 23

Large as the trust funds are, they’re going to shrink rapidly in the future. Today, more than 47 million Americans are age 65 and older. Does that sound like a lot of older people? Just wait. That number will soar beyond 80 million in the coming decades, bringing vastly higher demand for Social Security benefits. Today, there are 2.8 workers for each person getting Social Security. But by 2035 just 2.3 workers will support each beneficiary, and revenue no longer will be sufficient to fully pay for promised benefits, meaning that revenue won’t be able to keep up with benefits. The pay-as-you-go approach will come under increasing pressure, with proportionately fewer workers to support a great many beneficiaries. The trust funds are forecast to run out of money at about that time.

Although that’s a problem that must be addressed, it’s not as grim as it may sound. The SSA gets most of its revenue from payroll taxes. Even if the trust funds were somehow allowed to dry up, an extremely large amount of money would continue to flow through the system, paying most of what is currently promised.

Keep that in mind, especially if you wonder whether Social Security will be there for you down the road. Social Security should be able to pay three-quarters of promised benefits, even when it no longer has a surplus and if no action is taken. (That’s according to the Social Security trustees, who report annually on the system’s long-term outlook.)

If you’re like most people, you probably believe that the system requires long-term financial stability. But the idea that the SSA can cover three-fourths of promised benefits far into the future gives at least some perspective. With enough political will, lawmakers can put their heads together and come up with a fair and reasonable plan to shore up Social Security for the long term. (In Chapter 17, you can look at the most common proposals to accomplish this goal.)