The annual Social Security Trustees report was released March 23. This briefing examines the important facts and provides a real picture of Social Security's financial outlook.

How will this report affect the Social Security debate?
The debate about whether Social Security faces a problem and needs to be fixed is over. The 2005 trustees report shows that the program faces massive annual deficits starting in just 12 years. The report reinforces the need to fix Social Security. Now it is time to focus on solutions. Several plans to establish personal retirement accounts have been shown to fix Social Security. Now it is time for account opponents to present comprehensive programs that permanently fix Social Security. Opposing a potential solution is not the same thing as coming up with a plan.

What is the size of the Social Security problem compared to last year?

• In net present value terms, Social Security owes $5.7 trillion dollars more in benefits than it will receive in taxes. That number includes $1.7 trillion, in net present value terms, to repay the bonds in Social Security's trust fund. This $500 billion increase is almost 9 percent higher than last year's $5.2 trillion number. The 2005 number consists of $1.7 trillion to repay the special issue bonds in the trust fund and $4.0 trillion to pay benefits after the trust fund is exhausted in 2041.
         
  Net present value measures the amount of money that would have to be invested today in order to have enough money on hand to pay deficits in the future. In other words, Congress would have to invest $5.7 trillion today in order to have enough money to pay all of Social Security's promised benefits between 2017 and 2080. This money would be in addition to what Social Security receives during those years from its payroll taxes.
         
• The perpetual projection extends beyond the usual 75-year planning horizon. In net present value terms, the perpetual projection is $12.8 trillion, including money necessary to repay bonds in the trust fund. Last year's number was $11.9 trillion. Those projections show that Social Security's total deficit continues to grow well beyond the 75-year projection period. Any reform that just eliminates deficits over the 75-year window will not be sufficient to solve the program's problems. The current system would run into renewed deficits after the 75-year window ends.
          
  This is important because many opponents of reform claim that raising payroll taxes by about 2 percent, the average percentage difference between revenues and outlays over the 75-year period, would solve Social Security's problems. The reality, however, is that the program's future deficits are projected to be not only so large but even growing so large that this tax increase would still leave a huge shortfall. These new projections should end the claims that Social Security's impending financial crisis can be resolved with modest changes to the current system.
            
• Social Security spending will exceed projected tax collections in 2017. These deficits will quickly balloon to alarming proportions. After adjusting for inflation, annual deficits will exceed $100 billion in 2022, $200 billion in 2027, and $300 billion in 2034.
            
• Between 2017 and 2080, the cumulative unfunded liability (the amount more that Social Security will have to pay in benefits during that period than it will receive in payroll and other taxes) is projected to over $25 trillion (in 2005 dollars). This is more than six times the national debt.

Is the important year to consider 2041, 2017 or 2008?
The year when Social Security begins to spend more than it takes in, 2017, is by far the most important year. From that point on, Social Security will require large and growing amounts of general revenue money in order to pay all of its promised benefits. Even though this money will technically come from cashing in the special issue bonds in the trust fund, the money to repay them will come from other tax collections or borrowing. The billions that go to Social Security each year will make it harder to find money for other government programs, or require large and growing tax increases.

A second important year is 2008. Starting in just a couple years, the annual Social Security surpluses that Congress has been borrowing and spending on other programs will begin to shrink. From that point on, Congress will have to find other sources to replace the money that it annually borrows from Social Security or shrink spending. Between 2009 and 2017, this annual amount will grow to about $100 billion annually.

Compared to these two, 2041, the year that the Social Security trust fund runs out of its special issue bonds, has little importance. Even though the end of those bonds will require a 26 percent benefit reduction, Congress would have been paying over $300 billion a year (in 2005 dollars) to repay those bonds for about 7 years by the time the trust fund runs out. They will have to do so through some combination of other spending cuts, newer taxes or additional borrowing. These are the same choices Congress would face without the trust fund.

Did politics influence the trustees report?
No. Social Security Administration Chief Actuary Stephen Goss and his staff of non-partisan experts produce the numbers in the trustees report. They are respected professionals who never have been, and are not subject to political pressure. Goss has been at SSA since 1973, and is internationally respected. Although members of the president's cabinet serve as trustees, they have little influence over the numbers. The 2005 numbers are substantially similar to trustees reports issued during the presidency of Bill Clinton.

When will Social Security begin to run a cash-flow deficit?
According to the new 2005 Report, the year that Social Security will begin to spend more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes remains at 2017 - one year earlier than last year's Report. The year the "trust fund" is exhausted also moves up a year to 2041 from last year's 2042.

What are the operating numbers from the current year?
The Trustee's Report includes detailed information about the aggregate amount of payroll taxes paid in the just ended calendar year and the aggregate amount of benefits of different types paid in that year. It also includes data on operating expenses. In 2004, the Old-Age and Survivors Trust Fund (which pays for retirement and survivor's benefits) took in $566.3 billion and paid out $421.0 billion. The annual surplus was $145.3 billion.

What does it all mean?

• Good news for seniors. The benefits of current retirees and those close to retirement remain completely safe. The 2005 Report shows that the program will have enough resources to pay full benefits until 2017. Despite political scare tactics, seniors can rest assured that their benefits are safe and that they will receive eveny cent that they are due including an annual cost-of-living increase.
       
• Bad news for younger workers. Unfortunately, younger workers have a great deal to worry about. Even though their parents' and grandparents' benefits are safe, theirs are not. Any worker born after 1974 will reach full retirement age after the trust fund is exhausted. Unless Congress acts soon, they can look forward to paying full Social Security taxes throughout their careers but only receiving 74 percent or less of the benefits that have been promised to them. In addition, they will have to pay about $6 trillion (in today's dollars) in additional general taxes in order to repay the Social Security trust fund.
   
• Social Security must be reformed. The Report shows that today's Social Security cannot last. Over time, the system has promised over $25 trillion (in 2005 dollars) more in benefits than it will have the ability to pay. Just repaying the amount that will be in Social Security's trust fund will cost a total of about $6 trillion.
         
• Delay makes it even harder to reform Social Security. Every year, there is one less year of surplus and one more year of deficit. Once those deficits start in 2017, the Trustees' Report shows that they will never end. Each year, with the disappearance of another year of surplus, reforming Social Security gets more expensive.
           
• Delay will make it harder to run the rest of the government. If Social Security is not reformed, by 2028 it will require about 10 percent of all income taxes collected that year in addition to what the program would receive from its payroll taxes to pay all promised benefits. By 2041, that number will surpass 15 percent of all income taxes and it will continue to grow after that. This will make it much harder for our children and grandchildren to pay for government programs dealing with national security, health, education, and the environment.
           
• Personal retirement accounts must be established. Allowing American workers to invest a portion of their existing Social Security taxes in an account that they would own is the lowest cost way to ensure that they have an adequate retirement income. The alternative is a combination of benefit cuts and tax increases. Without personal retirement accounts, workers will end up paying more taxes for less benefits. Polls consistently show that a large majority of Americans support President Bush's plan to establish such accounts.

False lessons that should be avoided

• Social Security's problems are so far in the future that we don't need to worry about them. It takes about 22 years to grow a taxpayer. Almost every new taxpayer who will begin a new career after graduating from college in 2025 is living today and can be counted. Similarly, everyone who will receive Social Security retirement benefits in the year 2040 is alive and most of them are paying taxes. Social Security's problems are based on demographics, which don't change from year to year. The people who will be hurt if nothing is done to fix Social Security are not fantasy people of the future. They are our children and grandchildren of today.
       
• President Bush's tax plan makes Social Security worse. Cutting taxes will not make it harder to pay for Social Security's coming deficits. Social Security will take in more cash than it pays out for about 12 years. Without the growth that will be stimulated by the President's tax plan, future Congresses will face a much harder task in either reforming Social Security or paying for its deficits.[1]
          
• Repealing President Bush's tax cuts will make it easier to pay for Social Security. Repealing tax cuts today will not make it easier to pay for Social Security in the future. Social Security does not need any additional cash to pay benefits for about another 12 years. During the interim, Congress will just spend the additional money on new programs, and by the time it might be used to pay benefits, every dollar will be committed to new "essential" programs that cannot be cut.

Background Information

What is the Trustees' Report?
Every year, the Social Security Act requires the Trustees of the Social Security trust funds to issue a report on the financial status of those trust funds. This report includes not only current financial information, but also projections about the funds' ability to finance promised benefit payments in the future. If the report shows that the trust funds will be unable to finance all of these payments (as all recent reports have), the law requires the Trustees to recommend ways to make up the shortage. However, this requirement is regularly ignored.

The Trustees include the Secretaries of Treasury, Labor, and HHS, the Social Security Administration Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, and two public trustees appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The public trustees are Thomas R. Saving of Texas A & M University and John L. Palmer of Syracuse University. They were nominated to a four-year term by former President Bill Clinton in 2000 and were approved by the Senate later that year. Both public trustees' terms expired last fall. However, the law allows them to continue in office until the next trustees report - the one issued on 3/23/05 - is issued.

The 2005 Report is the fourth to include the full input of these public trustees and continues to include a great deal of additional information that was not available in previous reports. Both trustees have spoken about the need to include more and clearer information so that the public can fully understand the state of the Social Security trust fund and the financial challenges that lie ahead. This year's report again shows the results of their efforts.

Social Security's three scenarios for the future.
The Trustees use three scenarios to project Social Security's financial future. However, only the middle scenario, called the "intermediate projection", is the most likely to occur. That is the reason that it is usually cited. The Trustees have also included both a more optimistic projection and a more pessimistic projection. Although all three are listed, it is not correct to assume that there is an equal chance that each might occur. In fact, there is a less than five percent chance that either of the other two scenarios will occur.

What's missing from the Report?

• A measure of workers' rate of return. The Trustees' Report does not include any measure of what workers actually receive for their payroll taxes. The best way to accomplish this would be to include a chart in the Report that plots implicit rates of return by birth year. Similar to a chart found in the GAO's August 1999 report on Social Security's rate of return, this chart would illustrate to Americans that the rate of return from Social Security has steadily and dramatically decreased. For instance, GAO's chart shows that a worker born around 1920 could expect a rate of return from Social Security taxes of about 7 percent after inflation. On the other hand, a worker born in mid-1980s could only expect a return of under 2 percent. If they were provided with these figures, workers would see that, unless the current system is reformed, they can expect a lower rate of return on their taxes than their parents and grandparents received. More important, they can see that their children and grandchildren will receive even less from Social Security.
            
• Information on the nature of its trust funds and how they differ from private-sector trust funds. The Office of Management and Budget explained in its fiscal year 2000 budget document that the Social Security "trust funds" do not contain stocks, bonds, or other assets that could be sold directly for cash. Unlike private-sector trust funds, the Social Security trust funds contain only IOUs that will have to be paid back with future taxes. As OMB noted,

These balances are available to finance future benefit payments...only in a bookkeeping sense. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits, or other expenditures.

How does Social Security operate?
For a briefing on how Social Security operates, how the trust fund works, how benefits are calculated, and other features of the current system and reform options, see Social Security Basics.

David C. John is Research Fellow in Social Security and Financial Institutions in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.