Social Security Cuts Loom 70% of Retirees Fear Losing Benefits Soon

A common goal for millions of Americans who want to enjoy their retirement is to start getting Social Security checks. People who regularly pay into the Social Security Administration (SSA) have faith in the system and wait for the right conditions to be met so they can retire. We’re afraid that it will get harder to reach this goal over time.

A long time ago, people could work toward retiring. But things have changed, and depending only on Social Security may not seem as smart now as it did 30 years ago. The current economy is putting more stress on the system, and its future will rest on the policies that the next president follows that are in line with his beliefs. Because of this, there is no question that people who are currently using the SSA or who will be using it in the future are getting more and more worried about what will happen to it in the next ten years.

Why could your Social Security checks be cut?

Before you can understand the current problems that could affect your Social Security checks, you need to go back to the beginning and look at how the Social Security System came to be. In 1935, when it was first created, the SSA’s main goal was to help older Americans survive their golden years by giving them a monthly wage. The main idea is that if they can get working people to pay a certain amount of money, they can pay for the payments and keep the federal government from having to pay as much for aid programs.

The retirement program was made to be financially stable by relying on a lot of people to give the money needed to pay a much smaller group of beneficiaries. This is how any insurance system works. So, the system could keep going by taking a small number of current recipients’ earnings (called “Social Security Taxes”) and taxing their benefits as part of their tax income. This way, the system could invest the money and only send out Social Security checks when it earned money.

Sadly, the Baby Boomer impact only happened once in the last 100 years, and the rise in birth rates didn’t last long. On the other hand, every year fewer and fewer babies are being born. Putting pressure on the base of Social Security payouts and showing how likely it is that the world will run out of money. This is not just a guess; the SSA has said that it will not have enough money to pay retirement payments by 2033. This date could be pushed back to 2035 if the disability insurance fund’s assets are also used up. This means that the principal of the funds, not just the returns, will have to be used to pay Social Security checks. If there is a shortfall, it will have to come from the government budget, which means that people will have to pay more taxes.

Because of this, the only ways to make SSA benefits last again are to cut them, raise the amount of money people contribute, or make it harder for people to get them. People who haven’t retired yet will be hit harder because it will be harder for them to get their Social Security checks in the future.

What do you think you can do to keep your Social Security checks from being cut?

To be honest, there isn’t much you can do to protect your Social Security checks and make sure that the SSA will still be able to run even though it might have to cut back in the coming years. You can, however, get ready to get the most money from your retirement benefits. The easiest way to do this is to put off retirement as long as possible, increase your contributions, check your work experience to make sure there are no mistakes, and strengthen other ways to save money, like a Roth IRA or 401(k).