If Social Security taxes were increased in 1983 to ease the burden of a smaller generation tasked with providing benefits to a larger number of longer living elders, why did our country’s leaders borrow and spend the surplus, and why has whom obscured the truth?

Early retirements strain Social Security system

 

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.

 

Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn't expect the increase to be so large.

 

What happened? The recession hit and many older workers suddenly found themselves laid off with no place to turn but Social Security.

 

Job losses are forcing more retirements even though an increasing number of older people want to keep working. Many can't afford to retire, especially after the financial collapse demolished their nest eggs.

 

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes next year and in 2011, a first since the early 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security.

 

Without a new fix, the $2.5 trillion in Social Security's trust funds will be exhausted in 2037. Those funds have actually been spent over the years on other government programs. They are now represented by government bonds, or IOUs, that will have to be repaid as Social Security draws down its trust fund.       

 

Stephen Ohlemacher

Associated Press, September 27, 2009

 

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[G.H. - In other words, if the Trust Fund is to be repaid by more borrowing and higher taxes, the Social Security Trust Fund is a generational violation/crime perpetrated by the powers that be and enabled by an accomodating press.]