{"id":82219,"date":"2025-08-14T13:05:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T13:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/82219\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T13:05:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T13:05:06","slug":"social-securitys-90th-anniversary-marked-by-funding-threats-and-privatization-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/82219\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Security’s 90th anniversary marked by funding threats and privatization talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON — When President Franklin D. Roosevelt<\/a> signed the Social Security Act into law 90 years ago this week, he vowed it would provide economic stability to older people while giving the U.S. “an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.\u201d <\/p>\n

Today, the program provides benefits to almost 69 million Americans monthly. It’s a major source of income for people over 65 and is popular across the country and political lines. <\/p>\n

It also looks more threatened than ever. <\/p>\n

Just as it has for decades, Social Security faces a looming shortfall in money to pay full benefits. Since President Donald Trump took office the program has faced more tumult. Agency staffing has been slashed. Unions and advocacy<\/a> groups concerned about sharing sensitive information have sued. Trump administration officials including the president for months falsely claimed millions of dead people<\/a> were receiving Social Security benefits. Former top adviser Elon Musk called the program a potential \u201cPonzi scheme.” <\/p>\n

Trump and other Republicans have said they will not cut Social Security benefits. Yet the program remains far from the sound economic system that FDR envisioned 90 years ago, due to changes made \u2014 and not made \u2014 under both Democratic and Republican presidents. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at past and current challenges to Social Security, the proposed solutions and what it could take to shore up the program.<\/p>\n

The so-called go-broke date \u2014 or the date at which Social Security will no longer have enough funds to pay full benefits \u2014 has been moved up to 2034, instead of last year\u2019s estimate of 2035. After that point, Social Security would only be able to pay 81% of benefits, according to an annual report<\/a> released in June. The earlier date came as new legislation affecting Social Security benefits have contributed to earlier projected depletion dates, the report concluded.<\/p>\n

The Social Security Fairness Act, signed into law by former President Joe Biden and enacted in January, had an impact. It repealed<\/a> the Windfall Elimination and Government Pension Offset provisions, increasing Social Security benefit levels for former public workers. <\/p>\n

Republicans\u2019 new tax legislation signed into law in July<\/a> will accelerate the insolvency of Social Security, said Brendan Duke at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey haven\u2019t laid out an idea to fix it yet,” he said. <\/p>\n

The notion of privatizing Social Security surfaced most recently when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this month said new tax-deferred investment accounts dubbed \u201c Trump accounts<\/a> \u201d may serve as a \u201c backdoor to privatization<\/a>,” though Treasury has walked back those comments. <\/p>\n

The public has been widely against the idea of privatizing Social Security since former President George W. Bush embarked on a campaign to pitch privatization of the program in 2005, through voluntary personal retirement accounts. The plan was not well-received by the public. <\/p>\n

Glenn Hubbard, a Columbia University professor and top economist in Bush\u2019s White House, told The Associated Press that Social Security needs to be reduced in size in order to maintain benefits for generations to come. He supports limiting benefits for wealthy retirees. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have to make a choice,” Hubbard said. \u201cIf you want Social Security benefits to look like they are today, we\u2019re going to have to raise everyone\u2019s taxes a lot. And if that\u2019s what people want, that\u2019s a menu, and you pay the high price and you move on.” <\/p>\n

Another option would be to increase minimum benefits and slow down benefit growth for everyone else, which Hubbard said would right the ship without requiring big tax increases, if it’s done over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a political choice,\u201d he said, adding \u201cNeither one of those is pain free.” <\/p>\n

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group for the preservation of Social Security benefits, is more worried that the administration of benefits could be privatized under Trump, rather than a move toward privatized accounts. The agency cut more than 7,000 from its workforce this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to reduce the size of the government. <\/p>\n

Martin O\u2019Malley, who was Social Security agency commissioner under Biden, said he thinks the problems go deeper. <\/p>\n

“There is no openness and there is no transparency\u201d at the agency, he said. \u201cAnd we hear about field offices teetering on the brink of collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Social Security Administration representative didn’t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research<\/a> poll conducted in April<\/a> found that an increasing share of older Americans \u2014 particularly Democrats \u2014 support the program but aren\u2019t confident the benefit will be available to them when they retire.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of what we hear is that its running out of money,\u201d said Becky Boober, 70, from Rockport, Maine, who recently retired after decades in public service. She relies on Social Security to keep her finances afloat, is grateful for the program and thinks it should be expanded. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my mind there are several easy fixes that are not a political stretch,\u201d she said. They include raising the income tax cap on high-income earners and possibly raising the retirement age, which is currently 67 for people born after 1960, though she is less inclined to support that change. <\/p>\n

Rachel Greszler is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the group behind the Project 2025 blueprint for Trump\u2019s second term. It called for an increase in the retirement age. <\/p>\n

Greszler says Social Security no longer serves its intended purpose of being a social safety net for low-income seniors and is far too large. She supports pursuing privatization, which includes allowing retirees to put their Social Security taxes into a personal investment account. <\/p>\n

She also argues for shrinking the program to a point where every retiree would receive the same Social Security benefit so long as they worked the same number of years, which she argues would increase benefits for the bottom one-third of earners. How this would impact middle-class earners is unclear. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen talking about needing to reform the system, we need to reform it so that we don\u2019t have indiscriminate 23% across the board cuts for everybody,\u201d Greszler said. \u201cWe need to reform the system in a more thoughtful way, so that we are protecting those who are most vulnerable and reliant on Social Security.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON — When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law 90 years ago this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[57417,966,28,793,787,147,530,111,800],"class_list":{"0":"post-82219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-57417","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-government-programs","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-washington-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}