Fertility Down, Social Security in Trouble

Doug French, “Fertility Down, Social Security in Trouble,” DouglasinVegas.com, 2023/6/10

Bad news for everyone depending on Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme was released the other day, “Social Security is expected to deplete the fund that helps pay out retirement benefits by late 2032,” reported The Wall Street Journal.  That would be just six years away. Last year the projected depletion date was 2033, so who knows maybe next year expected depletion date will be 2031.

Trump’s tax law gave senior citizens an extra deduction that reduced taxes on benefits for many Social Security recipients.  Those still working don’t qualify.

The primary reason is the same reason school districts are closing schools. Fertility rates have dropped and immigration is, well, unpopular. “The trustees reduced their long-term expectations for fertility rates on Tuesday, indicating they will remain lower for longer than previously projected,” wrote the WSJ.

One would think there would be a public outcry about this inevitable outcome of bad math. But, it’s the price of gas that has people spun up. So, if Congress doesn’t throw some more taxpayer money at the SS tust fund, “the depletion of reserves would trigger a 22% reduction in benefits in late 2032.”

Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told the WSJ,  “for the most part this is something people don’t want to talk about. Now that it’s quite urgent, there is no momentum.”

Back in 1983, The program averted insolvency with just months to spare, with an increase in taxes and decrease in benefits. According to James Freeman, AI is the only thing that will save Social Secuity and Medicare this time.

As it is now,

An average of almost 69 million Americans a month, including retirees, disabled people and children, receive a Social Security benefit, totaling about $1.6 trillion in annual benefits, according to the Social Security Administration.

Murray Rothbard explained,

The Social Security System is the biggest single racket in the entire panoply of welfare-state measures …

… The whole system is a vast Ponzi scheme, with the difference that Ponzi’s notorious swindle at least rested solely on his ability to con his victims, whereas the government swindlers, of course, rely also on a vast apparatus of tax-coercion

Everyone knew what was coming, but according to Empower the median 401k balance for someone in their 60’s is $187,249. Almost Daily Grant’s posted the following from CBS News.

Americans’ understanding of basic financial concepts has fallen to a 10-year low, raising concerns that households are becoming less prepared to manage debt, savings and retirement decisions, according to a new study from investment giant TIAA and Stanford University’s Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center.

In 2025, U.S. adults correctly answered only 47% of the 28 questions used to assess financial literacy, down from a high of 52% in 2020 and the lowest score in the decade since the survey began. The decline was driven by a growing share of Americans with very low financial literacy, which has jumped to 25% this year from 20% a decade ago, the study found.