Social Security Recipients Set to Get Benefit Cuts

[progree]

69. Four high level Democratic officials - in their 2024 SS Trustees report projected a 2035 depletion date

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2024/
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/2024/index.html

• The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund will be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits until 2033, unchanged from last year's report. At that time, the fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 79 percent of scheduled benefits.

• The Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund is projected to be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits through at least 2098, the last year of this report's projection period. Last year's report projected that the DI Trust Fund would be able to pay scheduled benefits through at least 2097, the last year of that report's projection period.

• If the OASI Trust Fund and the DI Trust Fund projections are combined, the resulting projected fund (designated OASDI) would be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits until 2035, one year later than reported last year. At that time, the projected fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing total fund income will be sufficient to pay 83 percent of scheduled benefits. (The two funds could not actually be combined unless there were a change in the law, but the combined projection of the two funds is frequently used to indicate the overall status of the Social Security program.)

. . .

the hypothetical OASDI asset reserves would be projected to become depleted in 2035 and 83 percent of scheduled Social Security benefits would be payable at that time, declining to 73 percent by 2098.

(all emphasis added)

The report is signed by four high Democratic officials. It is not some scraping from some Facebook page or Heritage Foundation or some Pete Peterson gang

Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, and Managing Trustee of the Trust Funds.
Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Trustee.
Julie A. Su, Acting Secretary of Labor, and Trustee.
Martin O'Malley, Commissioner of Social Security, and Trustee.

Additional key quotes are at https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143369508#post9
which was posted 1/9/25 and covering the 2024 Social Security Trustees report -- the last one produced by Democratic trustees

So, it is not right-wing propaganda that the SS trust funds are projected to be depleted in the mid-2030's, resulting in an automatic benefits cut -- (unless Congress acts to change the law) and I don't know of any progressive website that disputes that.

The exact year of trust funds depletion can be disputed by a year of two or three as conditions change, but not the near-term end result. For example the so-called Social Security Fairness Act of 2025 will reduce the trust funds' longevity by about half a year, according to Kiplinger.