Economic advisers to President Obama marked the 80th anniversary of Social Security on Friday by calling on Congress to redirect funding from the Social Security retirement trust fund into the separate disability trust fund to avoid cuts to beneficiaries next year.
“This simple step, which has been implemented many times before on a bipartisan basis, would ensure that workers with disabilities, retirees, and survivors receive the full amount of earned and expected benefits while policymakers develop longer-term policies to strengthen the Social Security program as a whole,” advisers Jason Furman and Jeffrey Zients wrote on the White House blog.
“However, if lawmakers fail to act, workers with disabilities could face deep and abrupt cuts in their benefits in 2016,” the added. “Such a cut is completely unnecessary as the combined trust funds have enough resources to pay full disability, retirement, and survivors benefits for nearly two decades.”
The 11 million disabled workers and family members who receive benefits through the disability program would receive an immediate 19 percent cut in their average monthly benefit check of $1,017 in late 2016 if nothing is done to replenish the disability trust fund, according to Social Security’s trustees.
Obama proposed to avert that outcome in his fiscal year 2016 budget by redirecting payroll taxes from the much larger retirement trust fund, which is projected not to be exhausted until 2035, into the smaller disability trust fund. That move would maintain the solvency of both programs through 2034.
Republicans, however, have resisted such a move unless it is coupled with reforms to improve the programs’ solvency. They have argued that inaction following previous funding patches for the disability program only illustrates that such temporarily solutions only allow Congress to postpone inevitable reforms and show the necessity of acting now rather than later. GOP lawmakers have begun hearings on overhauling disability insurance, and offered legislation to save money by, for instance, preventing people from “double-dipping” by getting both unemployment and disability insurance.
In their post Friday, Furman and Zients included nine facts intended to show the importance that Social Security plays in ensuring the well-being of Americans, including one asserting that disability insurance “helps pay the rent and put food on the table” for the 11 million beneficiaries.
