There's reason for concern over the status of Social Security's Retirement and Survivor's Insurance Trust Fund. Because of the pandemic, F.I.C.A. revenues are down, while payments to retirees continue. However, despite a decline in revenues, the Disability Insurance Trust Fund's reserves are increasing because payments to disabled beneficiaries keep going down. By the way in reading the table below, keep in mind that there is considerable seasonality in F.I.C.A. payments. Compare each quarter of this year to the same quarter in the preceding year and look at the overall picture.
I hope you don't mind but I copied/pasted your entire post to my FB page. I plan to do so w/ LI, too. Of course, I gave you credit. Thanks for keeping us in the know.
ReplyDeleteHow much of the drop in payments is related to switching disabled boomers on to retirement benefits instead?
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ReplyDeleteUnless I am mistake, a disabled individual and retired individual receive the same amount in benefits (PIA), so there wouldn't be a change in terms of benefits. But the old age and survivors insurance trust fund and disability trust funds are technically separate. So if there was a significant number of individuals rolling over into retirement benefits, it should show up in those figures. Reviewing the same time period, the OASI Trust fund looks like it's been relatively stable over the past two years, with a 10.115 billion increase in reserves. To put that in perspective, the OASI trust fund has a balance of 2.811 trillion, so it's relatively flat.
might want to read the chart again...income is UP (quarter over quarter) in all 3 quarters so far from 2019 to 2020. There is a small decrease in payments.
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