Social Security expenditures and receipts 2009 to 2012

[ProSense]

(Note that in 2009, total expenditures exceeded revenue from payroll tax contributions, which I suspect had to do with massive unemployment.)

2009
Total receipts 807,490
Net payroll tax contributions 667,257
Income from taxation of benefits 21,884
General fund reimbursementsa
Net interest b 118,349
Total expenditures 685,801


2010
Total receipts 781,128
Net payroll tax contributions 637,283
Income from taxation of benefits 23,942
General fund reimbursementsa 2,405
Net interest b 117,498
Total expenditures 712,526


2011
Total receipts 805,057
Net payroll tax contributions 564,231
Income from taxation of benefits 23,792
General fund reimbursementsa 102,680
Net interest b 114,355
Total expenditures 736,083


2012
Total receipts 840,190
Net payroll tax contributions 589,508
Income from taxation of benefits 27,258
General fund reimbursementsa 114,280
Net interest b 109,143
Total expenditures 785,781

http://ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html

So while payroll contribution dropped in every year subsequent to 2009, the General Fund reimbursed the SS Trust Fund in 2011 and 2012. Still, in no year did total expenditures exceed total receipts.

Getting back to full employment will go a long way in helping to improve the situation. In fact, raising the minimum wage helps. Lifting the cap would also help.

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[haele]

2. Okay, kick -

And yes, higher wages and more workers paying taxes will help the situation. Just as it did in the late 1980's/early 1990's. Raising the cap "to match rising wages" (- only place wages are rising is in the upper 1%, so we should raise the cap to follow where the money is flowing, right?), should also help immensely.

It's also good to see the General Fund starting to reimburse what it took out. As the workforce and wages grow, and the General Fund start repaying the debt, Social Security should be able to survive the boomer retirement and remain strong up through the point that the Milleninal boom starts scaring politicians and liberatiarians into claiming "it's not sustainable!"
Hopefully, by that time, human beings will have figured out how to handle a universal standard of living maintenence and economic structure that does not require full employement or politically charged number crunching. As technology advances, we will start finding ourselves out of work, and getting paid for labor will become a rarity. And that's where the danger really lies.

Haele

[ProSense]

4. Definitely.

"And yes, higher wages and more workers paying taxes will help the situation. Just as it did in the late 1980's/early 1990's. Raising the cap "to match rising wages" (- only place wages are rising is in the upper 1%, so we should raise the cap to follow where the money is flowing, right?), should also help immensely."

The cap should be raised in part for the reason you state. I think it should be lifted up to at least $250,000.

As I said, increasing the minimum wage would also help.

[former9thward]

3. From the 2013 Trustees Report.

Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program satisfies neither the Trustees’ long-range test of close actuarial balance nor their short-range test of financial adequacy and faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds. DI Trust Fund reserves expressed as a percent of annual cost (the trust fund ratio) declined to 85 percent at the beginning of 2013, and the Trustees project trust fund depletion in 2016, the same year projected in the last Trustees Report. DI cost has exceeded non-interest income since 2005, and the trust fund ratio has declined since peaking in 2003. While legislation is needed to address all of Social Security’s financial imbalances, the need has become most urgent with respect to the program’s DI component. Lawmakers need to act soon to avoid reduced payments to DI beneficiaries three years from now.

The Trustees project that the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund will be the next to face depletion after the DI Trust Fund. The projected date of HI Trust Fund depletion is 2026, two years later than projected in last year’s report, at which time dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 87 percent of HI cost. The Trustees project that the share of HI cost that can be financed with HI dedicated revenues will decline slowly to 71 percent in 2047, and then rise slowly until it reaches 73 percent in 2087. As it has since 2008, the HI Trust Fund will pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures than it receives in income in all years until reserve depletion.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/

[The Magistrate]

5. And Your Solution, Sir, Is?

[ProSense]

7. I'd also like to know. n/t

[ProSense]

6. True for those programs. Here is the statement

on the combined SS Trust Fund:

While the combined OASDI program fails the long-range test of close actuarial balance, it does satisfy the test for short-range (ten-year) financial adequacy. The Trustees project that the combined trust fund asset reserves at the beginning of each year will exceed that year’s projected cost through 2027.

This is relevant to the point in the OP:

Social Security’s total expenditures have exceeded non-interest income of its combined trust funds since 2010, and the Trustees estimate that Social Security cost will exceed non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period. The deficit of non-interest income relative to cost was about $49 billion in 2010, $45 billion in 2011, and $55 billion in 2012. The Trustees project that this cash-flow deficit will average about $75 billion between 2013 and 2018 before rising steeply as income growth slows to the sustainable trend rate after the economic recovery is complete and the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. Redemption of trust fund asset reserves by the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset Social Security’s annual aggregate cash-flow deficits. Since the cash-flow deficit will be less than interest earnings through 2020, reserves of the combined trust funds measured in current dollars will continue to grow, but not by enough to prevent the ratio of reserves to one year’s projected cost (the combined trust fund ratio) from declining. (This ratio peaked in 2008, declined through 2012, and is expected to decline steadily in future years.) After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund asset reserves to the extent that program cost exceeds tax revenue and interest earnings until depletion of total trust fund reserves in 2033, the same year projected in last year’s Trustees Report. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2087.

A temporary reduction in the Social Security payroll tax rate in 2011 and 2012 reduced payroll tax revenues by an estimated $222 billion in total. The legislation establishing the payroll tax reduction also provided for transfers from the General Fund to the trust funds in order to “replicate to the extent possible” payments that would have occurred if the payroll tax reduction had not been enacted. Those General Fund reimbursements amounted to about 15 percent of the program’s non-interest income in 2011 and 2012. The temporary payroll tax reduction expired at the end of 2012.

It states the point using a different focus. I focused on the relationship between the total expenditures and payroll tax contributions. Total receipts include interest income, which is why, along with the reimbursements from the General Fund, receipts exceeded expenditures.