The clock is ticking to fix Social Security’s funds.
The next White House administration may have a powerful role in shaping the program’s future.
Social Security’s combined trust funds are projected to last until 2035, at which point 83% of benefits will be payable, the program’s trustees projected earlier this year. Yet the fund Social Security relies on to pay retirement benefits is due to run out sooner, in 2033, when 79% of those benefits will be payable.
Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have promised not to touch benefits, though Trump alluded to cutting entitlements in a March CNBC interview.
The November race includes the oldest presidential candidates. Biden, at 81, is the oldest American president, while Trump, 78, is among the 20 oldest world leaders.
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Trump’s pick for vice president — Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio — adds another perspective on the issue.
Either Vance, 39, or Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, may be poised to one day occupy the Oval Office. Historically, one-third of U.S. presidents previously served as vice president.
Some experts have expressed reservations about what Vance as VP could mean for Social Security and Medicare.
“Former President Trump, one day he’ll talk about, ‘We need to cut these programs,'” said Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
“And then the next day, he’ll say, ‘Well, that’s not what I what I was talking about,’ and Vance is kind of cut from the same mold,” Richtman said.
In recent years, Vance has said he does not support cuts to Social Security or Medicare, according to press interviews sent by his Senate team dating back to 2022.
“In 2019, we had about $4.4 trillion of federal outlays …. last year, we expect to collect about $4.4 trillion in taxes,” Vance told Fox Business in January. “So the idea that you need to mess with Social Security and Medicare to get to a long-term fiscal sanity picture … I don’t think that’s right.”
However, the National Committee points out that is an about-face from earlier comments he has made.
The advocacy group has endorsed Biden for the 2024 race, which is only the second time it has done so. When asked whether Trump could have picked a better running mate to support Social Security, Richtman said most Republicans would have been the same.
‘Neither candidate really has a plan’
The National Committee has endorsed Democrats’ plans for Social Security, which call for applying additional taxes on wealthy individuals with incomes over $400,000.
As part of the White House administration, Harris has supported those plans. As a senator for California, she also backed a plan for similar reforms called the Social Security Expansion Act, which is now championed by leaders including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
“President [Joe Biden] and I will protect Social Security. Donald Trump will not,” Harris posted on X in June. “The contrast is clear.”
Biden has emphasized protecting Social Security in his State of the Union addresses and budget proposals.
While Democrats have called for requiring the wealthy to pay more into the program while expanding benefits, Republicans have opposed tax hikes.
Ultimately, Social Security reform may require a combination of changes.
Vance, in an interview with The New York Times that was published in June, suggested encouraging “seven million prime-age men not in the labor force” to work.
“You shift millions of those men from not working to working; you increase wages across the board; you increase tariffs; and I think that you buy yourself a whole hell of a lot more than the nine or 10 years that the actuaries say that we have,” Vance told the Times.
Getting more people back to work would help Social Security, but it would be difficult to accomplish, said Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who worked on Social Security reform policy in the President George W. Bush White House.
Moreover, Vance overestimates how far that change could go to repair the program, Biggs said.
“There is a much bigger funding gap than Social Security faced in 1983,” Biggs said. “And neither candidate really has a plan to address it.”
Democrats would beg to differ.
“There’s only one candidate in this race who will protect earned benefits that millions of Americans have paid into all their lives — Joe Biden,” said Joe Costello, a Biden-Harris 2024 spokesperson.
Yet come 2029, Biggs predicts the nation will continue to face the same Social Security dilemma. And the president to take office then — whether it be Vance, Harris or someone else — may be forced to address it.
Correction: Former President Donald Trump is 78 years old. An earlier version misstated his age.
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