A woman walks in a hallway at Edgemere, senior living community, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Dallas.
Chitose Suzuki/The Dallas Morning News
Amid rising cost pressures, older Texans in or near retirement may start to receive smaller Social Security checks in less than seven years if Congress doesn’t act sooner.
The Social Security Administration’s Old-Age & Survivors Insurance(OASI) Trust Fund is projected to run out by 2032 if the program continues to pay out more than it receives in income, according to its trustees’ newly released report.
Since 2010, the SSA has dipped into its trust fund reserves to pay retirement benefits as costs exceeded income, according to the report. If the reserves are depleted, Social Security could become insolvent or no longer able to pay its debts, leading to a 22% cut in retirement checks across the U.S.
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Each retirement check in Texas would be reduced by nearly $500 — $489 to be exact —, according to a report released June 3 by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal policy think tank. Their calculations are based on a 24% cut the SSA’s chief actuary had previously projected in August 2025.
This amounts to a total benefit cut of $23.7 billion statewide, according to the report which analyzed data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and SSA. It ranks Texas among the most affected states after California and Florida.
‘Doing nothing’ is not an option
Texas seniors on fixed incomes are already struggling with higher costs for groceries, healthcare and gas, said former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who is running for election in Texas’ 33rd Congressional District.
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“These cuts would be catastrophic,” he said, “Even the possibility of reductions like this adds to the constant stress they and their families feel when trying to plan for the future. I will not let that happen.”
On Monday, Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Democrat Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York introduced a bill for the Bipartisan Social Security Commission Act, which would create an independent entity to address the long-term solvency of Social Security.
According to Rep. Cole, the new bill will “allow us to find commonsense solutions to ensure the long-term survival of this program.”
“Millions of Americans who have paid into this program throughout their working lives may not receive the money they deserve,” he wrote in a press release about the bill, adding that “doing nothing on Social Security is not an option.”
The bipartisan commission would be required to produce a proposal to address Social Security insolvency within one year, according to Rep. Suozzi.
“Everyone knows Social Security faces serious long-term challenges, but too often Washington chooses to ignore them,” he wrote. “We owe it to current and future retirees to set partisan politics aside and develop responsible solutions that protect and strengthen the program.”
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Allred also advocated for adjusting the payroll tax cap “to capture higher earners without hurting the middle class, adjusting benefits for the wealthy, and closing investment loopholes that allow the ultra-wealthy avoid paying their fair share.”
According to the trustees’ report, lower fertility rates and declining contributions from immigrants, alongside reduced revenue from changes brought on by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, are contributing to “a negative projected effect on Social Security’s financial status.” Increases in labor productivity and average earnings may raise the program’s incomes, albeit to a much smaller extent.
The trustees, who include the treasury secretary, labor secretary, health and human services secretary and the Social Security commissioner, say the latest findings show the urgency of needed changes to the programs, according to the Associated Press.
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The last time Congress acted to resolve Social Security’s persistent financial issues and restore solvency was about 40 years ago when legislation was introduced to raise taxes, curtail future benefit growth and increase the full retirement age from 65 to 67.
To illustrate the magnitude of the solvency gap, the trustees said it would have taken either raising the Social Security tax on every worker’s paycheck from 12.4% to 16.65% or reducing benefits by 25.2% starting January 2026, to stay solvent.
But making changes to the programs has long been politically unpopular, and lawmakers have repeatedly kicked Social Security and Medicare’s troubling math to the next generation, the Associated Press reported.
Potential cuts sharpen affordability challenges for older Texans
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As of December 2025, about 5 million retired Texans – over 4 million of whom were 65 or older – received Social Security benefits.
Roughly a million of these retirees reside in North Texas in the congressional districts covering Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Ellis, Kaufman and Rockwall counties. While congressional district boundaries extend well beyond North Texas, adults in a recent AARP survey said they were less likely to vote for their member of Congress if they failed to act and allowed Social Security payment cuts.
“With prices rising for everyday essentials like groceries, housing, utilities and health care, current and future retirees are counting on Social Security now more than ever,” wrote Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president and chief advocacy and engagement officer at AARP.
“The bottom line is that Social Security is the critical foundation of retirement security that Americans have earned through a lifetime of hard work, paying in with every paycheck. It must be strengthened and protected.
In a recent report by The News, several older North Texans shared their struggles with rising cost pressures in the region. Across the U.S., adults over 50 are feeling financially squeezed, according to AARP research published this May. Their 2026 Financial Security Trends Survey shows that about 60% of older adults are worried they don’t have enough money to last through retirement, while 42% of those yet to retire hold less than $50,000 in savings.
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Federal data shows that retirees across Texas received an average monthly Social Security benefit of about $2,000 in 2025, or less than $25,000 annually. According to the Elder Index, created by researchers at the Gerontology Institute in the University of Massachusetts Boston, this is short of the $32,000 older Texans need annually to live independently. In North Texas specifically, they need more than $36,000.
With the federal poverty line at about $16,000, nearly a third of older Texans are living in the gap below the minimum required income, The News previously reported. They don’t have enough to live independently and are ineligible to receive financial assistance.
Rising costs are the primary driver of financial insecurity, according to AARP’s research.
Nearly 70% of those surveyed said prices are rising faster than their incomes. Many reported that monthly expenses for food, housing, transportation, and especially health care are now higher, compared to a year ago.
“Older Americans are feeling that gap acutely,” wrote Richard Johnson, vice president of financial security at the AARP Public Policy Institute.
“That is not a story about individual financial decisions. It is a story about affordability that is touching households at every income level.”
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.