Recent weeks have not been full of good news about the future of Social Security. A long-delayed government report, from the Social Security Administration, called the 2020 Social Security Trustees’ Report, stated that the main trust fund that funds Social Security is expected to dissipate by 2034, a year earlier than previously believed.

“The Trustees’ projections in this year’s report include the best estimates of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Social Security program,” Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, said in a statement issued by the Social Security Administration.

“The pandemic and its economic impact have had an effect on Social Security’s Trust Funds, and the future course of the pandemic is still uncertain. Yet, Social Security will continue to play a critical role in the lives of 65 million beneficiaries and 176 million workers and their families during 2021.”

However, an argument has surfaced stating that it shouldn’t be all doom and gloom when it comes to the future of Social Security.

Mark Miller wrote for Reuters this week that “these panicky predictions appear every year when the trustees overseeing Social Security issue their report on the financial health of the program, and this year was no exception. The pandemic-induced recession of 2020 added a new twist since many forecasters were predicting before the report was released that COVID-19 would dramatically worsen the financial outlook for Social Security.”

He went on to say that while it’s not time to panic yet, steps need to be taken by Congress to shore up the program. And while a reduction in benefits is certainly possible if nothing is done by 2034, there remain plenty of options for Congress when it comes to avoiding that outcome.

Social Security, after all, is a hugely popular program, and any politicians seen as responsible for a benefit cut would likely pay a significant political price.

“The causes of the long-range imbalance in Social Security have long been clear: rising benefit outlays expenses as the nation ages, and a dramatic decline in birth rates, which translates into fewer workers paying into the system over time,” Miller wrote. “Congress has known about these problems since the early 1990s. But the situation has been a stalemate because there has been no consensus about how to address the problem, especially with the rising political polarization of the last decade. Conservatives have pushed for a higher full-retirement age—which effectively cuts benefits by raising the bar for attaining your full benefit—while progressives developed a consensus over the past decade around new revenue and expansion.”

Miller also argued for any reform to reduce inequality.

“If we take action sooner, averting trust-fund exhaustion is the place to start, but Congress also should use targeted benefit expansion as a way to address the rising income inequality, racial and gender gaps that plague retirement security,” he wrote. “The aim should be to boost the amount of preretirement income that Social Security replaces, especially for lower- and middle-income households that rely on the program most.”

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist, and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters