Social Security is the nation’s largest social insurance program, making payments to approximately 75 million Americans every month.
Yet the program faces an imminent funding shortfall.
Social Security’s trust fund for retirement benefits may run out in 2032, which could prompt an across-the-board benefit cut, according to projections from the Social Security Administration and Congressional Budget Office.
Social Security has been on the brink of funding cuts before. In 1983, when the last major reforms to the program were enacted, Social Security was just months away from not being able to pay full benefits.
At that time, lawmakers voted on bipartisan legislation that included taxes on benefit income and gradual increases to the retirement age to restore the program’s solvency.
