Yesterday, the Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the current and projected financial status of the US Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds. All of this has been entirely foreseeable. Years of short-term planning and under-funding have brought us to the sound of inevitability:
- The total annual cost of the program is projected to exceed total annual income in 2018 for the first time since 1982, and remain higher throughout the 75-year projection period. As a result, asset reserves are expected to decline during 2018. Social Security’s cost has exceeded its non-interest income since 2010.
- The year when the combined trust fund reserves are projected to become depleted, if Congress does not act before then, is 2034 – the same as projected last year. At that time, there will be sufficient income coming in to pay 79 percent of scheduled benefits.
