Benefits July 23, 2015

Social Security Gains a Year of Solvency

The combined trust fund reserves are still growing and will continue to do so through 2019, the annual Trustees Report says.
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The combined asset reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds are projected to become depleted in 2034, one year later than projected last year, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees annual report. 

Seventy-nine percent of benefits will be payable at that time. The DI Trust Fund will become depleted in 2016, unchanged from last year’s estimate, with 81% of benefits still payable.

The combined trust fund reserves are still growing and will continue to do so through 2019, the report says. The asset reserves of the combined OASDI Trust Funds increased by $25 billion in 2014 to a total of $2.79 trillion. Beginning with 2020, the cost of the program is projected to exceed income. The projected actuarial deficit over the 75-year long-range period is 2.68% of taxable payroll—0.20 percentage points smaller than in last year’s report.

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. The cost of $6.1 billion to administer the program in 2014 was a very low 0.7% of total expenditures, the trustees say.

The combined Trust Fund asset reserves earned interest at an effective annual rate of 3.6% in 2014.

Other highlights of the Trustees Report include:

  • 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.
  • 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 2015 Trustees Report is at www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/TR/2015/. 

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