President Should Offer Plan to Secure Social Security & Medicare

President Biden delivered remarks today at the White House on Social Security and Medicare. The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

Today’s youngest retirees will be 68 years old when Medicare exhausts its reserves and 75 years old when Social Security becomes insolvent. If policymakers continue to do nothing to shore up Social Security, all beneficiaries will face an immediate 20 percent cut at the time of insolvency. The longer we wait to secure these programs, the larger and sharper the adjustments will need to be.

Given the precarious state of these programs, the President is right to focus his attention on it during his remarks today. Unfortunately, the President used his speech to attack his political opponents on the issue as opposed to putting forward his own specific plan to secure Social Security, something he has failed to do over the course of his administration. And while the Inflation Reduction Act did make important changes that will lower health care costs, much more needs to be done to ensure the solvency of Medicare for generations to come.

Unfortunately, the leading democratic proposal in Congress could weaken Social Security, as would bipartisan proposals to adjust program benefits for certain beneficiaries that may be considered during the lame duck session. Given the looming insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, what we need from policymakers is less partisan speeches and more specific plans, from both parties, to secure the future of these important programs.

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For more information, please contact Kim McIntyre, Director of Media Relations, at mcintyre@crfb.org