CNN posted an article by Fortune Magazine yesterday stating that this will be the first time in 25 years that Social Security pays out more money than it takes in.
According to the article:
"No one has officially announced that Social Security will be cash-negative this year. But you can figure it out for yourself, as I did, by comparing two numbers in the recent federal budget update that the nonpartisan CBO issued last week.
"The first number is $120 billion, the interest that Social Security will earn on its trust fund in fiscal 2010 (see page 74 of the CBO report). The second is $92 billion, the overall Social Security surplus for fiscal 2010 (see page 116)."
This fiscal year ends on September 30th, at that point Social Security will have a balance of minus $28 billion. The problem with Social Security is that when it has a cash surplus, Congress uses it to fund the budget (to hide the amount of red ink). Now that well has run dry and there is a big hole that needs to be filled.
The article concludes:
"To be sure -- three of the most dangerous words in journalism -- the current Social Security cash deficits aren't all that big, given that Social Security is a $700 billion program this year, and that the government expects to borrow about $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2010 to cover its other obligations, about the same as it borrowed in fiscal 2009.
"But this year's Social Security cash shortfall is a watershed event. Until this year, Social Security was a problem for the future. Now it's a problem for the present."
I wonder how long it will be before Congress actually addresses this issue.
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