For more than eight decades, social security has been the most important government program for retirees. Although the average monthly advantage of $ 1,980.86 (as of February 2025) is relatively modest, this payment plays a key role in the construction of the Finance Foundation for many retired workers.
In each of the last 23 years, the national surveyed Gallup explores retirees to determine how important their monthly social security check is. In each poll, between 80% and 90% of pensioners noted that they need their payment, in some capacity to cover their expenses.
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While social security is historically a fortress of stability, as the first check of the pensioner was sent in January 1940, the lead pension program in America is everything else but not a stable position today. The ability to reduce benefits is quickly approaching and many people ask: Is immigration guilty of the worsening financial prospects of social security?
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For 85 years, the Board of Social Security has published an annual report in which the financial health of social security has been described in detail. This report allows everyone to investigate how the program collects income and where these dollars find themselves.
More importantly, the Trustees’ report is known for making forecasts managed by data on future financial health of social security. Trustees take into account changes in fiscal and monetary policy, as well as numerous demographic changes when they evaluate how financial the program sounds for future generations of beneficiaries.
For 40 consecutive years, the custody has warned that the long-term (defined as 75 years after the release of a report), the collection of income will not be sufficient to cover expenses, such as benefits and to a lesser extent administrative expenses. This long -term financing deficit has grown to a huge $ 23.2 trillion by 2024.
What is even more worrying is the prospect of the trustees for the Old-Alert and Survival Insurance Fund (OASI). According to the Trustees’ report in 2024, OASI assets are expected to be exhausted by 2033.
The good news is that Oasi does not require stock reserves to remain solvents. While people continue to work and pay their taxes, a 12.4% wage tax, which is the main mechanism for financing social security, will ensure that the beneficiaries meeting the requirements receive a monthly check. In other words, there is no danger of bankruptcy or bankruptcy to OASI or social security.
However, the absence of OASI assets in stock would signal that the existing payment schedule, including annual life cost adjustments (Colas), is not sustainable. According to trustees, a 21% reduction in social security checks may be required up to 2033 (if the stocks of assets are fully exhausted) to avoid additional reductions in 2098.
Oasi’s assets are about to be exhausted by 2033. US assets for the US Insurance Fund and survived at the end of the year by YCHTS.
The expanding deficit of long -term financing of social security, as well as its shrinking stocks of OASI assets, according to problems for the leading pension program in America. The big question is, “What has led to these problems?”
In social media reports, it is not uncommon to see publications that guilt migrants coming to America. Moreover, some share the view that the underdeveloped migrants have drained reserves of social security assets.
What can be said with specific security is that immigration it To blame some of the financial drop in social security … but no For any of the reasons, often cited in social media reports.
Legal migration in the United States is a need for financial health of social security. Most migrants who legally come to America are young and will therefore spend decades in the workforce, contributing through the wage tax before one day to gather benefit to social security with retirement of their own benefit. This constant influx of legitimate migrants is necessary for balancing workers who withdraw from the labor force.
Based on data from the United Nations, the US net migration degree (ie, people who legally enter the United States, minus those leaving the country) was almost reduced between 1997 and 2023 after reaching the top of 1.866,819 in 1997, the net migration broke up to 999 700 in
Accord to the Intermediate-Model Forecast from the 2024 Trustees Report-The Intermediate Model Is The Model That’s Considered Likeliest to Occur-The US Needs to Average 1,244,000 2098) to Stay on the Current Course, Which is the a-AForeMention Long-Term Funding Shortfall of $ 23.2 Trillion. With even 1 million net legal migrants entering the country in 2023, he reported that the 75-year shortage of social security financing is likely to increase.
In short, the problem of social security immigration is reduced to enough legal migrants entering the country.
Image source: Getty Images.
However, an aspect of immigration, which is absolutely not a problem for the traditional social security program, is the undocumented migrants.
The reason that undocumented migrants are often blamed for the financial woes of social security is probably related to people who associate the traditional social security program, which pays a retired worker, disabilities and survivors, with additional security income (SSI), which provides payments to people with limited income and resources. Although the Social Security Administration monitors both programs, they are completely separate and funded differently.
The SSI can provide asylum -seeking income and is fully funded through the General Fund.
For comparison, the traditional social security program is financed by a 12.4% salary tax on earned income, taxation of social security benefits and interest income generated by its assets of assets, which are investing in government bonds with a special problem, as required by law. Undunted workers are not able to receive compensation for a pensioner and are provided with none of the defense of the beneficiaries of disabilities or survivors bound by the traditional social security program.
And interesting, undocumented migrants make They have a positive effect on social security. Based on an analysis of 2014 by the new American economy – a bilateral research and advocacy organization – researchers believe that underdeveloped workers have contributed $ 100 billion to social security in the previous decade. To put this in some context, about 1% of the annual social security income can be attributed to undocumented migrants who will not receive a penny in future benefits.
Immigration is absolutely part of the reason that social security is eight years since the scope of the reduction of benefits – but it is a story of very few legal migrants and has nothing to do with the under -purchased workers who benefit from the program.
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The reduction of social security benefits is approximately 8 years – is immigration guilty? Originally published by Motley Fool
