Consumer confidence in the U.S. economy recently hit an all-time low. New data on Social Security, inflation, and the national debt is unlikely to lift anyone’s spirits.
Earlier this month, trustees of the Social Security Administration said that there will not be enough money to pay recipients their full benefits by 2032, earlier than expected, without more funding and/or cost cuts. The Consumer Price Index showed inflation hit a three-year high in May at 4.2 percent. And the U.S. now has a record-high $31 trillion in publicly held debt, equal to the country’s gross domestic product.
In this edited conversation, Jason Furman, Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy jointly at Harvard Kennedy School and in the Department of Economics, discusses Social Security’s impending cash crunch, consumer pessimism, and why new data about the national debt is “definitely a problem.” Furman, who was an outspoken critic of “Bidenomics,” served in the Clinton administrations and was President Barack Obama’s chief economist.
You recently wrote in The New York Times that Social Security’s solvency crisis is closer than anyone ever imagined. Why is this happening sooner than previously forecast?
