Maya MacGuineas: Our elected officials can’t keep ignoring the looming Social Security problem

Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She recently wrote an opinion piece for Deseret News, an excerpt of which is below.

The year is quickly drawing to a close, and politicians and pollsters are already looking over the horizon to next year’s midterm elections. Despite the breakneck pace of an ever-changing news cycle, early indications suggest the issue at the front of voters’ minds is a familiar one: the economy. 

Affordability is dominating the political discourse in this country, driven by persistent inflation and the rising cost of everyday goods. While both sides in Washington continue the blame game over high prices, the fact is there’s an even bigger fiscal issue looming ahead that politicians are actively trying to avoid — and if they succeed in doing so, it will bring a whole new meaning to the affordability crisis in America. 

The issue is the future of Social Security, a program that supports more than 68 million Americans. Because the program operates as an internally funded program walled off from the rest of the federal budget — funded by payroll taxes and taxation of benefits — many Americans are unaware of how the program is doing financially.

But earlier this year, the Social Security trustees issued a dire wake-up call: they project that the trust fund that allows the program to currently pay full promised benefits will be exhausted in late 2032. That’s less than seven years from now, when today’s 60-year-olds reach the full retirement age.

Read the entire piece here.

Published works by members or staff of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget do not necessarily reflect the views of all members or staff of the Committee.