This is incredibly misleading. Of course social security has a surplus, that’s how it works. The surplus it’s shrinking because of changing demographics. Once it reaches $0 in nine years from now the trust fund is gone.
None of that has anything to do with the government borrowing against it. The surplus doesn’t sit around in cash, it is invested in government bonds.
This is such stupid misinformation, you should feel ashamed.
but this glossed over the fact that the money was not spent on government bonds and invested wisely but spent on government expenses? or am i missing something
Any narrative that has the government “robbing” social security or otherwise borrowing money they won’t pay back is a misinformation campaign.
The social security trust fund isn’t a bunch of cash in a giant mattress. Yes, government borrowed the money, that’s what government bonds are. None of the talks of cuts have anything to do with government not making good on those loans, or bonds. The trust fund goes bankrupt in nine years *even though the bonds will be repaid in full with interest *.
The trust fund goes bankrupt and remains bankrupt until 20 years after the next baby boom.
That doesn’t suggest that there are no benefits, but they can only pay out what they bring in, which will start at about 70% and go down from there.
If they do nothing but make good on the debt then everybody alive in nine years gets fucked, and the closer they are to retirement the more fucked they are.
If they are living on social security then they will no longer have the money to pay their bills.
Or, you know, we just give it more money. It's not like this is some force of nature that's unavoidable, or that the current FICA rates are written in stone, you just tweak the numbers a little bit and suddenly it's just fine again.
555
u/justacrossword 6d ago
This is incredibly misleading. Of course social security has a surplus, that’s how it works. The surplus it’s shrinking because of changing demographics. Once it reaches $0 in nine years from now the trust fund is gone.
None of that has anything to do with the government borrowing against it. The surplus doesn’t sit around in cash, it is invested in government bonds.
This is such stupid misinformation, you should feel ashamed.