Social Security is Not Going Broke

 Social Security is one of the most popular and successful government programs in the history of our country. For more than 80 years, through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American on time and without delay.

In 2021, Social Security lifted 26.3 million Americans out of poverty, including more than 18 million seniors. Before it was created in 1935, about half of our nation’s seniors were living in poverty. Today, the senior poverty rate is 10.3 percent.

Yet, despite this success, tens of millions of seniors and 25 percent of people with disabilities are still struggling to get by, and many older workers fear that they will never be able to retire with security and dignity.

The most recent evidence indicates that nearly 40 percent of seniors rely on Social Security for a majority of their income and one in every seven seniors rely on it for more than 90 percent of their income. And to make matters worse, nearly half of Americans age 55 and older have no retirement savings. Meanwhile, the average Social Security benefit is only $1,688 a month.

Social Security is not going broke. Social Security has a $2.85 trillion surplus in its trust fund and can pay every promised benefit to every eligible American until the year 2035. After that, the Social Security Administration estimates that there will be enough funding available to pay 80 percent of promised benefits.

Given this reality, Congress must not to cut Social Security. Congress must expand Social Security and extend its solvency so that everyone in America can retire with the respect that they have earned and deserve after a lifetime of hard work. That’s what the Social Security Expansion Act, introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Rep. Val Hoyle, is all about.

The Social Security Expansion Act would:

• Extend the solvency of Social Security for 75 years by requiring the wealthiest American households to pay their fair share of taxes. Today, because of the earnings cap on Social Security taxes, a CEO making $20 million a year pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $160,200 a year. This legislation would lift this cap and subject all income above $250,000 to the Social Security payroll tax. Under this bill, over 93 percent of households would not see their taxes go up by one penny.
• Expand Social Security benefits across-the-board for current and new beneficiaries. 
  Under this bill, Social Security benefits for current and existing recipients would be increased by $2,400 a year.

• Increase Cost-Of-Living-Adjustments (COLAs). 
  This bill would more accurately measure the spending patterns for seniors by adopting the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E). Older Americans, by and large, are not going out on spending sprees buying big screen TVs, laptops, or the latest high-tech gadgets. Rather, they spend a disproportionate amount of their income on health care and prescription drugs, which would be reflected in the formula for calculating COLAs under this legislation.
• Require millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share into Social Security.
  Currently, workers have 12.4 percent taken out of each paycheck and contributed to the Social Security trust fund, half paid by the employer and half by the worker. This bill would require the wealthy pay the same 12.4 percent on their investment and business income, by increasing the net investment income tax by 12.4 percent and applying it to certain business income not already covered by payroll taxes.
• Improve the Special Minimum Benefit for Social Security recipients. 
  This bill would help low-income workers stay out of poverty by increasing the Special Minimum Benefit and indexing the benefit level so that it is equal to 125 percent of the poverty line, or over $18,000 for a single worker who had worked their full career.
• Restore student benefits up to age 22 for children of disabled or deceased workers, if the child is a full-time student in a college or vocational school. This legislation would restore student benefits to help educate children of deceased or disabled parents that were eliminated in 1983.
• Combine the Disability Insurance Trust Fund with the Old Age and Survivors Trust Fund to help senior citizens and people with disabilities.

ADD YOUR NAME: Become a Grassroots Endorser of the Social Security Expansion Act of 2023!

Thanks,

Team Social Security Works