On February 11, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published its annual Budget and Economic Outlook report, covering 2026 to 2036. Among the projections, the report found that Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance will be unable to pay full benefits in 2032 (a year earlier than projected in last year’s report). This is due to the higher projected cost-of-living adjustments and lower projected revenues. To put that in perspective, Social Security will be unable to pay full benefits before the program turns 100.
Social Security is in desperate need of reform, but doing so is easier said than done. Perhaps the worst cultural consequence of Social Security is that this unsustainable program is pitting generations of Americans against one another. The young support benefit cuts while the old support higher payroll taxes. Successful reform means balancing the interests between these generational divides to prevent political backlashes, which may jeopardize future reforms.
What Social Security Is and Is Not
In 2007, AIER published “What You Need to Know About Social Security.” This Economic Education Bulletin outlines Social Security’s history, some myths and realities about the program, as well as options for reform and what individuals planning for retirement could do in the meantime. Many of the bulletin’s lessons are still applicable.
Chief among them is the nature of the program. Social Security is not a system of individual retirement accounts. Nor is it a defined benefit pension program. It is a pay-as-you-go structure, where payroll taxes collected from working Americans go to fund benefit payments for the elderly. Despite being sold to Americans as an earned benefit, the true nature of the program is much closer to a Ponzi scheme than many care to admit.
This means that the program relies upon working Americans to pay into the system outnumbering retirees. That number has dwindled, and it currently sits at 2.7 workers per Social Security recipient, an unsustainable ratio. Minor adjustments are not a feasible solution. The program needs structural reform.
Possible Reforms
Properly reforming Social Security requires a structural transition to a system based on ownership, savings, and investment. Universal Savings Accounts (USAs) can help anchor the transition if they are paired with policies that address the generational divide over the program.
One such proposal made by the AIER Bulletin, as well as others, is a transition to a flat benefit. While this would drastically improve the program’s solvency, it risks immense political backlash. Current retirees and those near-retirement are planning on specific levels of benefits. Changing those overnight will likely result in voters 50 and over (one of the largest and fastest-growing voting blocs) punishing politicians who supported reforms by supporting challengers in primary and general elections. Furthermore, that punishment at the polls will make incumbents reluctant to offer other reforms in the future.
To mitigate this political risk, policymakers can consider cohort differentiation. This would mean that current retirees and near-retirees receive all accrued benefits, financed transparently through general revenues, while the youngest cohorts transition out of the traditional program entirely and have access to USAs, which provide them with control over their finances and the portability to take those savings with them regardless of career or location changes.
Additionally, Social Security’s Old Age Insurance could be separate from Disability Insurance and Survivors’ Insurance. The combined OASDI framework encourages benefit creep, especially as old-age insurance costs increase. Stand-alone programs can help prevent the re-expansion of the old-age system through cross-subsidization.
The AIER Bulletin also notes that, while total privatization of retirement savings would be ideal, offering a smaller, flat benefit could encourage people to save more. Furthermore, the bulletin recommends encouraging saving through tax policies that incentivize savings over consumption (such as a decrease in reliance on income taxes). Additionally, policymakers can make it easier for Americans to save by replacing the myriad savings vehicles in the tax code with a broader universal savings account system without restrictions on how that money is used.
There is also the possibility of devolving the program to state governments and having states manage these funds like defined benefit pensions. This would enable benefits to be connected to earnings. One such drawback, however, is state management of defined benefit pension plans is mixed at best. A defined benefit system at the federal level may exacerbate the knowledge and incentive problems that occur at the state level.
Finally, long-term success will be determined by the institutional constraints in place. These include hard cohort cutoffs and a supermajority requirement for benefit expansions. Without such constraints, we will likely see a reversion to what we have now, with the same empty promises that the system would be fully self-funded, only to saddle Americans with massive tax obligations.
Institutional Reform — or Generational Reckoning
Social Security reform is no longer a choice; it is the only way to avoid a very unfortunate future. Ignoring that reality will mean higher taxes on working Americans and benefit cuts to retirees. Enacting sustainable policy solutions can help avoid disaster without leaving Americans, young and old, destitute. The best hedge against the failures of the status quo, however, is to take control of one’s plans for the future instead of expecting the government to manage the future for us.
