Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that's happened since the 1980s.The deficits — $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 — won't affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.
Social Security has been part of the federal budget for decades because it was always running a surplus. Those surpluses made the unified federal budget look better. If Social Security is going negative, it is time to take it off budget. Off budget would be great for the agency since there would be little reason to hold the agency's administrative budget down to the starvation levels we have seen in recent years -- and yes, despite the increased budgets since Democrats gained a majority in Congress in 2006, Social Security's budget remains in terrible shape. Social Security probably needs something like 20,000 additional employees to get its work done properly.
20,000 employees? Dream on. Expect the 2011 budget to be scaled back big time as Democrats face increased pressure to trim the record deficits, especially if health care reform passes. While the reform is expected to be deficit neutral, election year politics will not allow much more spending, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteI agree that leaner times are ahead. As far as hiring, the Agency most likely will plod along with a one for one replacement, with maybe a slightly better ratio in a few desperate locations.
ReplyDelete20,000 is close to accurate, if not more. But, yes, dream on. The agency backlogs at all levels are so severe, nothing less than that will begin to touch them. But no one wants to make the tough decisions and admit they have screwed up for the past 20 years and that massive hiring is the only way to fix it.
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