The forecast is grim. In just 10 years, the Social Security Administration will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes. If nothing isdone, workers now in their 20s will have no retirement safety net when Social Security goes bankrupt in 2041.
To pay scheduled benefits, already high payroll taxes (currently 12.4 percent) would have to increase 50 percent and the tax cap (now $94,200) would have to be eliminated. But even those economy-stifling measures won’t save a system that’s fundamentally flawed. Disaster cannot be averted while Congress continues to siphon off Social Security taxes to meet short-term political objectives. The Social Security Trust Fund is already sitting on $12 trillion in IOUs from you-know-who.
