Teresa HerrNeckar: Future of Social Security

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says: “Few budgetary concepts generate as much unintended confusion and deliberate misinformation as the Social Security trust funds. The trust funds are invested in Treasury securities that are just as sound as all other U.S. government securities, held by investors around the globe and regarded as being among the world’s safest investments.”

No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, you would question having your Social Security benefits in the hands of Wall Street. But the money we invest in Social Security through payroll taxes throughout our working lives is not in the volatile stock market, nor is it a Ponzi scheme.

However, Social Security began drawing from reserves in 2021. The current path of this draw would deplete those reserves in 2035. The wage base limit for Social Security payroll tax for 2025 is $176,100. You are not taxed on any wages beyond this limit. This means everyone pays no more than $10,918.20 in Social Security taxes.

Democrats have suggested raising this limit and Republicans suggest raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits from 67 to 69. The impacts of these and other financially secure options need to be discussed — not with inflammatory rhetoric but serious debate across the aisles of Congress — and a functional resolution agreed upon, because the problem of sustaining Social Security, on which so many millions of Americans depend, is not only urgent but solvable.

Teresa HerrNeckar

Northampton