US: in 2012 Social Security’s trustees projected that from 2021 its costs would exceed its income. So it happened
US: Social Security income and costs, $ a year
2021: costs $1.14T, income $1.09T. Reserves have shrunk every year since, to $2.56T at the end of 2025. The 2012 report expected the reserves to run out in 2033; the latest, in 2034.
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Social Security pays US public pensions and disability benefits. Every year its trustees publish a projection of its income, costs and reserves 75 years ahead.
By year, 2021–2025: blue, the fund’s income (contributions, taxes on benefits and interest); orange, costs. In all these years costs exceed income, and reserves cover the gap.
- 2012 report: the year costs exceed income
2021
- 2012 report: reserves depleted
2033
- 2021: income → costs, reserves at year end
$1.09T → $1.14T; $2.85T
- 2022: income → costs, reserves at year end
$1.22T → $1.24T; $2.83T
- 2023: income → costs, reserves at year end
$1.35T → $1.39T; $2.79T
- 2024: income → costs, reserves at year end
$1.42T → $1.48T; $2.72T
- 2025: income → costs, reserves at year end
$1.45T → $1.61T; $2.56T
- Latest report (2026): reserves depleted
2034
Projection: the 2012 Social Security Trustees Report, intermediate assumptions, combined OASI and DI funds: “Beginning in 2021, however, annual cost exceeds total income”. Outcome: the 2026 report, table IV.A3.
The fund’s long-range projections have missed both ways (see “When US Social Security runs out”), but this turn was called right nine years ahead. It followed from what was already known: the baby boomers retiring and fertility.
A question for this picture
If the turn could be seen nine years ahead, what stands in the way of acting early?