page_title: Social Security Trust Fund
section_title: Recent activity and financial status
hierarchical_section_title: Social Security Trust Fund / Recent activity and financial status
caption_attribution_description: English: Cumulative OASDI Income Less Cost - 2008
context_page_description: The Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund are trust funds that provide for payment of Social Security benefits administered by the United States Social Security Administration.
  The Social Security Administration collects payroll taxes and uses the money collected to pay Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance benefits by way of trust funds. When the program runs a surplus, the excess funds increase the value of the Trust Fund. At the end of 2014, the Trust Fund contained $2.79 trillion, up $25 billion from 2013. The Trust Fund is required by law to be invested in non-marketable securities issued and guaranteed by the "full faith and credit" of the federal government. These securities earn a market rate of interest.
  Excess funds are used by the government for non-Social Security purposes, creating the obligations to the Social Security Administration and thus program recipients. However, Congress could cut these obligations by altering the law. Trust Fund obligations are considered "intra-governmental" debt, a component of the "public" or "national" debt.
context_section_description: The 2015 Trustees Report Press Release (which covered 2014 statistics) stated:
  "Income including interest to the combined OASDI Trust Funds amounted to $884 billion in 2014.  ($756 billion in net contributions, $30 billion from taxation of benefits, $98 billion in interest, and less than $1 billion in reimbursements from the General Fund of the Treasury—almost exclusively resulting from the 2012 payroll tax legislation)
  Total expenditures from the combined OASDI Trust Funds amounted to $859 billion in 2014.
  Non-interest income fell below program costs in 2010 for the first time since 1983.  Program costs are projected to exceed non-interest income throughout the remainder of the 75-year period.
  The asset reserves of the combined OASDI Trust Funds increased by $25 billion in 2014 to a total of $2.79 trillion.
  During 2014, an estimated 166 million people had earnings covered by Social Security and paid payroll taxes.
  Social Security paid benefits of $848 billion in calendar year 2014.  There were about 59 million beneficiaries at the end of the calendar year.
  The cost of $6.1 billion to administer the program in 2014 was 0.7 percent of total expenditures.
  The combined Trust Fund asset reserves earned interest at an effective annual rate of 3.6 percent in 2014."
  Some basic equations for understanding the fund balance include:
  Fund ending balance for a given year = Fund starting balance + program revenues + interest - program payouts
  Program annual surplus (or deficit if negative) = program revenues + interest - program expenses
  Program annual cash surplus (or deficit if negative) = program revenues - program expenses
  "Program revenues" has several components, including payroll tax contributions, taxation of benefits, and an accounting entry to reflect recent payroll tax cuts during 2011 and 2012, to make the fund "whole" as if these tax cuts had not occurred. These all add to the program revenues.
  During 2016, the initial balance as of January 1 was $2,780 billion. An additional $710 billion in payroll tax revenue and $87 billion in interest added to the Fund during 2016, while expenses of $776 billion were removed from the Fund, for a December 31, 2016 balance of $2,801 billion (i.e., $2,780 + $710 + $87 - $776 = $2,801).
caption: The Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted by 2034, based on current law projections. Payments to beneficiaries thereafter will be limited to program tax receipts. Source: 2015 OASDI Trustees Report.
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