A Simple Reminder About Social Security

Just a public service reminder:

Over the long term, Social Security is supposed to be revenue neutral.  In other words, pay out as much as it pays in.

Due to structural realities, demographic variance, and other kinds of complicated things, it won't be revenue neutral every year.  It varies from year to year.

What does this mean?  It means that if it's okay for Social Security to make more than it spends in some years, it's also perfectly okay for it to spend more than it makes in other years.

What does this also mean?  It means that if it's okay for Social Security to have a surplus for a few years, as it has for the past many years, it's also okay for it to have a deficit for a few years, too.

So, the date at which Social Security spends more than it makes is really no big deal.

And, the date at which the surplus is exhausted - that's no big deal either, despite the fact that it's always phrased as some sort of apocalypse.

The only thing that would be a big deal is if the surplus stays exhausted forever, and there are plenty of sane proposals out there that would fix that, without doing anything extreme.