Social Insecurities
Last week the Treasury Department’s Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report in a classic case of good news, bad news. The good news , of a sort, was that the date through which Social Security will be able to pay scheduled benefits was projected to be 2034—and while that’s not very far away, it was a year later than the prior year’s report had indicated. The bad news , of course, is that without some kind of adjustment the program won’t be able to pay those scheduled benefits beyond 2034. [i] Now, that’s not the same as “going broke” or running out of money—but, as things stand now—assuming no adjustment is made—a possible outcome would be that the scheduled benefits paid would only be about three-fourths of “scheduled.” [ii] What’s weird is that it’s hard to find anybody who seems to think the problem won’t get fixed at some point—though the definitions of “fixed” vary—and nobody is willing to hazard a guess on who’s...