Ensuring the trust fund's viability has been a mission of countless experts and the subject of blue-ribbon studies. There is no immediate funding crisis, but an aging population will create a tremendous financial burden on a weakened system during the next century, experts predict. When the nation's 76 million baby boomers begin retiring in large numbers in 2010, Social Security's solvency will erode rapidly. By 2029, it will exhaust all its reserves and if nothing is done, the system will be able to pay only 75 percent of promised benefits, economists project. The current Social Security payroll tax is 12.4 percent, half paid by workers and half by employers.
More drastic change is called for to bolster the program, experts say.
For example, he advocates an immediate increase in the retirement age from 65 to 67. Primus and others, including the American Association of Retired Persons, advise people to finance their retirement through savings and pensions, as well as Social Security. Politicians have been loath to call for reform, since most Americans consider Social Security as untouchable as their hard-earned pensions. Various experts have been empaneled to find ways to ensure the program's solvency. But the plans differed sharply on how those stock investments would be handled.