The Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the financial status of the Social Security programs in May.
Both the Trustees and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) project that Social Security’s retirement and survivor’s program will not be able to pay full benefits in less than a decade. Both still project that Trust Fund exhaustion could lead to immediate benefit cuts of 21 to 25 percent for the tens of millions of seniors and their families who rely on the program.
Because of this, the House Ways and Means Committee's Social Security Subcommittee has held a hearing on the future of the Social Security Trust Fund.
Like so much else in Congress, this hearing resulted in a lot of partisan finger-pointing. The two parties tried to blame the other for the emergency that Social Security will soon be facing.
Although no action by Congress is expected this year, especially since we’re in a Presidential election year, we can only hope this will be the beginning of a serious attempt by Congress to develop bipartisan legislation that will fix the problem and give seniors a sense of certainty that their Social Security benefits will continue to be there for them.
For our part, TSCL will submit testimony to the subcommittee with our recommendations for what actions Congress needs to take.
