This year’s Social Security Trustees Report shows that the system’s reserves are projected to last until 2035, one year later than what was projected in last year’s report. After 2035, Social Security will have annual revenue sufficient to pay 80% of benefits, that is if Congress takes no action.
But for many beneficiaries relying on Social Security for most of their income in retirement, this report makes it clear that Congress must act to provide an overdue boost in benefits and ensure the program remains solvent for decades to come.
Of course, there are politicians in Congress who remain dead set on slashing your earned benefits, instead of improving them. In fact, the Republican Study Group, which includes nearly three-fourths of the House GOP, recently released a budget plan that would set up a special fast-track procedure to ram through cuts to Social Security and raise the retirement age to 70.
These are not rational solutions to improve benefits or strengthen the program for future beneficiaries. These are proposals aimed at destroying Social Security, plain and simple.
And Senator Lindsey Graham (SC) has confirmed that if Republicans take control of Congress in the upcoming election, they will focus on “entitlement reform,” including Social Security privatization. Of course, when he says “entitlement reform” he means drastic cuts to your earned benefits.
At a time when more than half of all workers have no retirement plans at work and millions more have little or no retirement savings, benefits must be improved — not cut — to protect the growing share of seniors who depend on the program for all or most of their retirement income.
What about Medicare? The Trustees of the Medicare program report that the Reserves in Medicare’s Part A Trust Fund will become depleted in 2028, two years later than projected last year, at which time the system could still pay 90% of benefits. But this is only if Congress takes no action.
The Trustees estimate that the Medicare Part B premium will be $170.10 per month in 2023 — the same as 2022. Lawmakers can take action to cut beneficiaries’ out of pocket costs and boost Medicare’s fiscal health by passing a legislation that lowers prescription drug costs and uses the billions of dollars in savings to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision care.
Today, Americans are turning to Social Security and Medicare more than ever. That’s why it’s so important that we work together to strengthen these programs that have been the bedrock of America’s middle and working classes, and resist proposals by those determined to tear them down.
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