The future of Social Security has been discussed and debated for a number of years now but it seems to be front and center with the current conversations at the federal level.

With talk about ending Social Security or making changes to the benefits, we’re getting even more questions about the program and whether it’s going broke. When you hear talk about bankruptcy, they are talking about the Social Security Trust Fund running out of money in 2034, but bankruptcy and insolvency are very different.

What we want to do in this episode is make sense of what exactly is happening with Social Security and which concerns are legit and which ones might be overblown. This isn’t the first time Social Security has had to make adjustments since it was originally introduced in 1935, and we’ll take you through what has changed over the past nearly 90 years.

Many retirees are going to depend on Social Security for retirement income and we want to make sure you are prepared for the future of this program. As changes are made to benefits, we need to make changes to retirement plans as well and we’ll explain that as well on the show.

Here’s some of what we discuss in this episode:

• Historical background on where we got to where we are today with Social Security. [4:11]
• Here are the facts around Social Security right now. [7:57]
• Why do we keep hearing about bankruptcy and whether the benefits will be gone soon? [10:11]
• This isn’t the first time changes have been made to Social Security. [12:31]
• What changes could be considered in the near future? [16:49]
• Do you ever make too much money to qualify for Social Security? [23:12]

Additional Resources: 

Proposed SS changes – https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/solvency/

The Social Security Trust fund – https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/WhatAreTheTrust.htm

If you have any questions about what we discussed in this episode, please reach out and we’d be happy to provide answers.