New Polling Reveals Bipartisan Support for Social Security Reform

There is broad, bipartisan support for balanced reforms that restore Social Security to solvency, according to the latest set of survey results from Voice of the People (VOP) and the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

VOP’s national Common Ground in the Battlegrounds? surveys asked respondents about four commonly discussed solvency reforms – two changes to benefits and two increases in revenues – to Social Security: applying the Social Security payroll tax to earnings above $400,000, gradually increasing the payroll tax rate to 13%, reducing benefits for the top fifth of earners, and gradually increasing the Normal Retirement Age to 68. Across all four options, large majorities of voters across every partisan affiliation registered their support. For two of these options – reducing benefits for the highest-income workers and expanding the payroll tax base to cover earnings above $400,000 – support approached or exceeded two-thirds of respondents.

Also polled were two expansions to benefits, including establishing a new minimum benefit amount and indexing cost-of-living adjustments to the experimental Consumer Price Index for Americans 62 years of age or older, both of which registered supermajority support.

With just six years to go until the insolvency of Social Security’s retirement fund – and with it a deep and abrupt 22% benefit cut – policymakers should take note of the public’s support for balanced reforms that bring Social Security back into fiscal balance. The faster that policymakers act, the smaller the adjustments will have to be, the more time that will be available to phase in needed changes, and the greater the number of opportunities to enact targeted benefit enhancements like those polled in VOP’s survey. Many solutions are on the table – the time to act is now.