New Social Security trustees report bolsters case program is structurally sound

[Panich52]

New Social Security trustees report bolsters case program is structurally sound, says LAT’s Michael Hiltzik:

“…they declared that the program’s fiscal health has improved over the last year, for predictable reasons: The economy is improving, and workers’ wages are rising. The trustees moved the projected exhaustion date for the combined trust funds of the program’s old-age and disability segments one year further out, to 2034 … no comprehensive change to Social Security is necessary. What’s needed is for the economy to keep improving, and for a higher share of profits to show up in working Americans’ paychecks.”

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-social-security-trustees-20150722-column.html

[CountAllVotes]

1. But this masks the dire condition of the disability program

>>If Congress doesn't shore up the fund by then, disability benefits would have to be cut 19%, reducing the average monthly disability check from a princely $1,016 to $823. The trustees urged Congress at least to take the short-term action of reallocating payroll tax income from the old-age program to disability to keep it fully funded; that would keep both trust funds solvent through 2033.

Conservatives in Congress have been resisting this obvious fix, last done in 1994, in favor of concocting some broader Social Security reform--which, given the tenor of the current Congress, undoubtedly would involve benefit cuts to retirees and the disabled.

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This may shut some of those up that seem to believe that SSDI recipients (those that have WORKED FOR OVER 10+ YEARS!) receive thousands of dollars a month.

[Igel]

2. And when there's another recession the situation will be dire.

Basing long-term performance on the recent past is idiotic. Yet that's what the law requires them to do.

It also looks at the trust fund through an SSA-specific lens. All the money will have to be repaid from the general fund.