doesnt social security fund itself?
why is fiscal responsibility an issue for social security, beyond governments stealing from it?
how many cuts to education or defense spending save social security?
why is fiscal responsibility an issue for social security, beyond governments stealing from it?
how many cuts to education or defense spending save social security?
When Social Security was created in the 40's, the ratio of workers paying taxes to beneficiaries was like 40:1. So, each worker originally paid a very share amount.
Today, owing to demographic factors, that number is 3:1. Soon it will be 2:1. So by 203X, that number will drop below 1:1, meaning the program will be paying out more money than it takes in. It's at that point that the program will be considered "broke", because it can't meet its obligations.
So there's any number of solutions, which mostly boil down to some combination of the following: Raise SS taxes, cut benefits, or delay benefits (ie later retirement age)
You can't save it by cutting education or defense spending. By 2036 the combined social security and medicare shortfall is projected to reach $2.7 trillion. If defense spending stays at around 3.1% of GDP--it has been decreasing as a share of GDP since the 1990s--then the shortfall in medicare and social security will be about $1 trillion more than the entire defense budget.
It isn't fully funded though and people have been raising the alarm for decades now that it will run out of money.
The problem isn't simply that governments are stealing from the social security pot, the program isn't designed in a sustainable way and there are no direct links between money taken in and benefits paid out. The assumption at the time was that growth would always keep up, that fails eventually.