Congress is running out of time to fix its Social Security problem. <\/p>\n
According to the 2026 Trustees Report, the Social Security retirement trust fund is projected to run out by 2032<\/a> when it becomes insolvent, impacting more than 60 million Americans<\/a>. <\/p>\n Must Read <\/p>\n At that time, the program will be entirely dependent on payroll taxes. And since these taxes will only be able to cover about 78% of benefits, the average American will see a 22% reduction to their monthly check. <\/p>\n But that’s not across the board, as some states will have it worse than others. In fact, a map of the real-world impacts of Social Security cuts shows just how deep those cuts could be across different states. And no state will be spared<\/a>, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFRB). <\/p>\n Mapping out Social Security cuts by state <\/p>\n Throughout the country, the average monthly cut<\/a> would come out to $500, according to the CFRB. <\/p>\n The monthly Social Security check for retired workers averaged $2,086<\/a> as of July, according to the Social Security Administration (SSA). Of course, that amount varies and depends on your work history, your lifetime earnings and the year that you start claiming benefits. <\/p>\n But, consider a $500 cut to the average $2,086 monthly check. That would leave you with $1,586 per month and, over the course of the year, you’d be out $6,000. <\/p>\n That could essentially wipe out a retiree’s monthly grocery budget; a one-person household spends an average of $485<\/a> on groceries each month, according to a report from GroceriesTracker. <\/p>\n But in 29 states, cuts are set to exceed $500 per month, with Connecticut feeling the most pain. In that state, the average retiree’s check would be slashed by $556 every month<\/a>, affecting 17.9% of the state’s population. <\/p>\n It’s worth noting that the CFRB’s calculations are based on the 2025 Trustees Report, which projected a 24% benefit cut upon insolvency in 2032. That cut is now projected to be about 22%<\/a>. Still, the CFRB’s map provides a glimpse of how cuts could impact different states \u2014 and which cuts will run the deepest. <\/p>\n Along with Connecticut, retirees in Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Utah and Washington will feel the most pain. <\/p>\n So, why the difference from state to state? The size of the cut will depend on the average benefit amount in a particular state. Retirees in states with historically higher wages and lifetime earnings \u2014 like Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire \u2014 receive larger checks., hence the larger cut. <\/p>\n Read More: Vanguard reveals what’s coming for U.S. stocks \u2014 and it could be bad news for this group of investors<\/a> <\/p>\n States with lower wages and lifetime earnings, like Mississippi, will face a lower reduction because retirees in this state have lower baseline benefits to begin with. However, retirees in these states are often more reliant on Social Security in retirement. <\/p>\n For example, Mississippi’s retirees are the most reliant on Social Security<\/a> in the nation. For those in the state who are 65 and older, it makes up nearly half (49.5%) of their total retirement income, according to a survey from FinanceBuzz. <\/p>\n So, while the average benefit cut in Mississippi would be $459 \u2014 which is below average in comparison to most states \u2014 that cut would still hurt the state’s retirees (perhaps even more so). <\/p>\n Other states where Social Security makes up more than 45% of a retiree’s income include Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan and Oklahoma. For those retirees, even a small cut could be devastating. <\/p>\n In 47 states, Social Security cuts would impact more than 15%<\/a> of the population, according to CFRB. And in 40 states, benefit cuts would exceed 1% of GDP. <\/p>\n How to protect your retirement <\/p>\n Due to the evolving worker-to-beneficiary ratio, there isn’t a simple fix to the problem. <\/p>\n As more boomers retire, there are more retirees to support \u2014 and those retirees are also living longer. Meanwhile, there are fewer American workers paying taxes to support this growing population of retired Americans. <\/p>\n “In 1955 \u2014 two decades after Social Security started \u2014 there were 8.8 workers per OASI beneficiary; that ratio dropped to 3.0 in 2025,” the Peter G. Peterson Foundation<\/a> reports. Add on low birth rates and lower net migration, and this problem doesn’t seem like it’ll be going away any time soon. <\/p>\n There’s still hope that Congress can come up with a plan to fix Social Security’s problems. Potential solutions include raising payroll taxes, raising the payroll tax cap, raising the retirement age or placing a ceiling on monthly benefits for the wealthiest recipients. <\/p>\n In the meantime, you can take steps to protect your retirement \u2014 no matter what happens with Social Security. After all, when the Social Security retirement program was rolled out back in 1935<\/a> (when people had much shorter life spans), it was never meant to support retirees for 30 years or longer. <\/p>\n Social Security was also never meant to be a retiree’s sole source of retirement income. Rather, it was meant to be part of a three-legged stool that also included employer pensions and personal savings. While many companies no longer offer a traditional pension, workers can participate in workplace savings plans such as 401(k)s<\/a> and 403(b)s<\/a>. <\/p>\n To protect your retirement, contribute enough to your workplace plan to get the full employer match (if a match is available) \u2014 that’s like getting free money. You can also open tax-advantaged accounts such as a traditional individual retirement account<\/a> (IRA), a Roth IRA<\/a> and\/or a Health Savings Account<\/a> (HSA, if eligible). <\/p>\n You could also wait to claim your Social Security retirement benefit. Retirees can start collecting their checks as early as age 62, but that would lock in a permanent 30% reduction<\/a>. If you wait until your full retirement age (FRA) of 67, you’ll receive 100% of your benefit. And if you wait even longer, you can earn an extra 8% per year up until age 70. <\/p>\n If there’s a 22% cut to Social Security, you could potentially offset that by waiting a few more years to claim your benefit. However, that means you’ll either need to keep working until your FRA or beyond, or you’ll need other sources of income to support you in the early years of retirement, such as personal savings. <\/p>\n You can find out how much your projected benefit would be at age 62, your FRA and age 70 by using the SSA’s online tools<\/a> or working with a financial advisor \u2014 and then work out how a 22% reduction could impact your retirement. <\/p>\n You can’t predict the future of Social Security, but you can prepare for any cuts. <\/p>\n What To Read Next <\/p>\n Get Warren Buffett’s best investing lessons, free. Join 250,000 readers getting Moneywise’s sharpest money reporting every week. Subscribe and we’ll send you our guide to the ideas that built Buffett’s fortune as a welcome gift.<\/a> <\/p>\n This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com<\/a> under the title: Connecticut retirees face the deepest Social Security cut in 2032 \u2014 $556 monthly \u2014 while 29 other states top $500 losses<\/a> <\/p>\n This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Congress is running out of time to fix its Social Security problem. According to the 2026 Trustees Report,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,253687,9922,4176,4174,4175,4204,30384,13329,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-768348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-cfrb","tag-cut","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-retirement","tag-retirement-income","tag-social-security","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}