Social Security Shortfall Is Real and Best Addressed Now
Kathryn Nix /
Both liberals and conservatives agree that Social Security’s coming fiscal problems need to be addressed soon or they will only grow worse. A recent analysis for the Pew Charitable Trusts by Charles Blahous, one of the two public trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, shows that Social Security’s problems cannot be wished away:
According to the trustees’ analysis, there is an 80 percent likelihood that the trust fund will be exhausted between 2032 and 2045. Moreover, under a scenario that is more optimistic than nine-tenths of likely outcomes, half of the projected 75-year actuarial imbalance would remain. Even under an extremely unlikely scenario, more optimistic than 97.5 percent of the possibilities, there would still be a fiscal shortfall of some amount.