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Social Security projected to cut benefits in 2035 barring a fix
The timeline to replenish Social Security is being extended. The federal retirement program said Monday it may not need to cut benefits until 2035, one year later than previously forecast, because of stronger performance by the U.S.
The new projection, from the Social Security Board of Trustees’ annual report, amounts to “good news” for the program’s 70 million beneficiaries, said Martin O’Malley, Commissioner of Social Security, in a statement. Even so, he urged Congress to take steps to shore up the program to ensure it can pay full benefits “into the foreseeable future.”
Social Security relies on its trust funds to provide monthly checks to beneficiaries, with the funds primarily financed through the payroll taxes that workers and businesses provide with each paycheck. But the funds’ reserves are drawing down because spending is outpacing income, partly due to the wave of baby boomer retirements and an aging U.S. population.
Experts underscore that if the trust funds are depleted, benefits won’t suddenly disappear. Instead, Social Security beneficiaries will face a cut to their monthly checks, with the agency on Monday projecting that recipients would lose 17% of their current benefits.
That would be painful for millions of retired and disabled Americans, but it represents a modest improvement from last year, when the Social Security Administration projected that benefits could be slashed by 23% if the trust funds reached the point of depletion.
Advocates for older Americans praised the improved outlook, while pressing Congress to take action on shoring up the program.
“Congress owes it to the American people to reach a bipartisan solution, ensuring people’s hard-earned Social Security benefits will be there in full for the decades ahead,” AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins said in a statement. “The stakes are simply too high to do nothing.”
Economic boost
O’Malley attributed the improved Social Security forecast to the stronger economy, pointing to what he called “impressive wage growth, historic job creation, and a steady, low unemployment rate.” In other words, a healthy job market is resulting in more Social Security taxes going into the funds’ coffers.
The report comes as Social Security’s financial outlook has become a political lightning rod, with Republicans proposing that the retirement age be raised — effectively cutting benefits for millions of current workers — and former President Donald Trump indicating he would be open to cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Democrats argue that there are other ways to fix the program without cutting benefits, such as raising the cap on payroll taxes. Currently, individual income over $168,600 is exempt from the Social Security payroll tax.
Medicare’s “go broke” date
Meanwhile, Medicare’s go-broke date for its hospital insurance trust fund was pushed back five years to 2036 in the latest report, thanks in part to higher payroll tax income and lower-than-projected expenses. Medicare is the federal government’s health insurance program that covers people age 65 and older and those with severe disabilities or illnesses. It covered more than 66 million people last year, with most being 65 and older.
Once the fund’s reserves become depleted, Medicare would be able to cover only 89% of costs for patients’ hospital visits, hospice care and nursing home stays or home health care that follow hospital visits.
In a statement on Monday, President Joe Biden credited his administration’s economic policies for Social Security and Medicare’s stronger outlook.
“Since I took office, my economic plan and strong recovery from the pandemic have helped extend Medicare solvency by a decade, with today’s report showing a full five years of additional solvency,” he said. “I am committed to extending Social Security solvency by asking the highest-income Americans to pay their fair share without cutting benefits or privatizing Social Security.”
—With reporting by the Associated Press.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s concerns about the health effects of fluoride may already be helping some Americans — investors in dental services companies.
Shares in Dentsply Sirona, Envista, Henry Schein Patterson Companies, and other providers of dental products are jumping, with Wall Street betting that a potential push by the incoming Trump administration to remove fluoride from the nation’s drinking water could spur demand for the companies’ services.
Kennedy, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said on social media just ahead of the November 5 presidential election that Trump would rid fluoride from the public water supply on his first day in office. Kennedy, a noted vaccine skeptic, has described fluoride as an “industrial waste” and linked it to arthritis, neurological deficiencies in children and other serious health problems.
“The thought here is RFK will bring to HHS a voice that is in favor of reducing, or eliminating, the amount of fluoridation that is added to drinking water,” Don Bilson, Gordon Haskett’s head of event-driven research, told investors in a report, according to NBC News. “This will, in turn, lead to an acceleration of tooth decay and more dental visits.”
Dental experts have largely refuted such claims. Dr. Aaron Yancoskie, associate dean of academic affairs at Touro College of Dental Medicine, told “CBS Mornings Plus” on November 13 that there is “excellent, solid data going back 75 years showing that fluoride is both safe, and it’s extremely effective at decreasing dental decay, that is, cavities, by strengthening the enamel of our teeth.”
According to KFF Health News, some studies have linked fluoride exposure among pregnant women to a higher risk of childhood neurobehavioral problems and lower IQs, leading experts to call for further research.
Fluoride is a mineral that keeps teeth healthy and reduces cavities by protecting them against bacteria that produces potentially damaging acid, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To prevent tooth decay, the U.S. has been adding a small quantity of fluoride to water since the 1950s.
Stocks have surged since Trump won a second term in the White House, with investors buoyed by his pledges during the campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris to cut corporate taxes and eliminate red tape for businesses.
contributed to this report.
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Washington — The House Ethics Committee is set to meet Wednesday as it faces increasing pressure to release a potentially damaging report detailing its investigation into allegations former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, two sources told CBS News.
The movements of the Ethics panel have been under heightened scrutiny since President-elect Donald Trump announced last week that he had selected Gaetz to serve as attorney general. The Florida Republican resigned his seat in the House in the wake of the announcement, which ended the Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction over Gaetz since he is now a former member.
The Ethics Committee declined to comment on the upcoming meeting. The panel was supposed to meet Friday to vote on releasing the report, but Trump tapped Gaetz for the nation’s top law enforcement officer days earlier. The committee then postponed its meeting.
Gaetz must win Senate confirmation to serve as attorney general, and senators have been calling to see the Ethics Committee’s report as they weigh whether to approve his nomination. Any confirmation hearings, which would be conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would not take place until next year after Trump is inaugurated. Republicans will gain control of the upper chamber in the next Congress, which begins Jan. 3.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told reporters last week that he believes senators should have access to the Ethics Committee’s findings.
“I think there should not be any limitations on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated,” said Cornyn, who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a Trump ally, similarly told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he believes the Senate should be able to see the report on Gaetz.
“Congress has to advise and consent, and Matt Gaetz is going to go through the same scrutiny as every other individual, and I’m going to give him a fair shot, just like every individual, and at the end of the day, the Senate has to confirm him,” he said.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson has cautioned against the release of the report by the Ethics Committee, warning in an interview Sunday that doing so for someone who is not a current House member “would be a Pandora’s box.”
“What I have said with regard to the report is that it should not come out. And why? Because Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress. He is no longer a member,” Johnson told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There’s a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain that the House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress.”
The House Ethics Committee first began its investigation into allegations of misconduct against Gaetz in April 2021, but deferred its consideration in response to a request from the Justice Department. It resumed its investigation in May 2023 after federal investigators declined to charge Gaetz following their sex-trafficking and obstruction probe.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and blamed the ethics probe on former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He has called the investigation a “smear.” The Florida congressman helped lead the historic effort to strip McCarthy of the speaker’s gavel last year.
The ethics panel said in June that it had spoken with more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas and reviewed thousands of pages of documents as part of its investigation into Gaetz, and determined that “certain allegations merit continued review.”
The committee said it was examining accusations Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, gave “special privileges and favors” to people close to him and sought to obstruct government investigations into his conduct.
Multiple sources told CBS News at the time that four women told the Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties, which Gaetz attended, that included sex and drugs. The panel has the Florida Republican’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women. One woman who testified to the Ethics Committee said she had sex with Gaetz at a party in 2017, just after he was elected to Congress and when she was 17 years old, sources told CBS News at the time
Her lawyer, John Clune, said on social media last week that she was a high school student and “there were witnesses.”
“We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report,” Clune wrote.
