Social Security's Finances Looking Slightly Better Than Last Year

     The entire 2015 report of Social Security's Trustees hasn't been posted yet. Here's a link for it when it's published. Here's the summary given out so far:

Taken in combination, Social Security’s retirement and disability trust fund reserves are projected to be exhausted in 2034, one year later than was projected in last year’s Trustees Report.  After trust fund exhaustion, annual revenues from the dedicated payroll tax and taxation of Social Security benefits will be sufficient to fund about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2089.   The 75-year actuarial deficit for the combined trust funds is estimated at 2.68 percent of taxable payroll, down from 2.88 percent of taxable payroll estimated in last year’s Report.  This improvement is due to new data and improved projection methods. 

Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds.  The DI Trust Fund reserves are projected to be depleted in late 2016, unchanged from last year’s estimate, after which time dedicated revenues are projected to cover 81 percent of scheduled benefit payments.  Legislation will be needed to address this financial imbalance.

     By the way, no one came up with a legal reason why the plan for saving the Disability Insurance Trust Fund that I posted yesterday wouldn't work. That plan requires no Congressional action.

     Update: The entire report is out now. It shows the Disability Insurance Trust Fund being $800 million short of making it through 2016. This is based upon a projection that the Disability Insurance Trust Fund will lose more ground in 2015 than it lost in 2014 and, in fact, that the Disability Trust Fund will lose more ground in 2015 than the projection made last year even though 2014 was better than the projection for 2014. The Actuary projects that the increase in benefits paid in 2015 will exceed the rate of inflation. However, so far in 2015 the Disability Insurance Trust Fund has run $900 million better than it ran in the first five months of 2014 and the number of people actually drawing Social Security disability benefits is going down, not up. I keep telling people that the Disability Insurance Trust Fund will last into early 2017. You have to assume a significant worsening of conditions to make the Disability Trust Fund exhaust in 2016 at a time when all indications are that conditions are modestly improving.