Half of Americans Believe Social Security Will Pay Them a Benefit When They Retire: Poll

An elderly couple walk past a Social Security Administration in Flushing, New York, during the COVID-19 pandemic on Feb. 10, 2021. Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times

Americans have become a little more optimistic about the prospect of getting at least some money from Social Security when they retire, but the numbers still reflect a troubling picture of a system teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

A new Gallup poll shows that 50 percent of American non-retirees believe that Social Security will pay them a benefit when they retire.

The numbers are an improvement over the prior three readings taken in 2005, 2010, and 2015, when the share of U.S. non-retirees who said they expect to receive a Social Security benefit when they retire was 45 percent, 36 percent, and 45 percent, respectively.

On the flip side, the latest data shows that 47 percent of Americans (who are not yet retired) think that when they finally call it quits, they won’t get a penny from Social Security.

Those figures in 2005, 2010, and 2015 were 50 percent, 60 percent, and 51 percent, respectively.

Optimism regarding Social Security also ticked up for U.S. retirees, with 53 percent saying they believe they'll continue to get their full benefits. In comparison, 43 percent think the size of their Social Security checks will get cut.

The results are based on Gallup polling carried in June and July, based on a sample of over 1,300 non-retirees and more than 600 retirees.

The latest poll stands in contrast to an earlier August 2023 survey showing that a whopping 75 percent of U.S. adults over 50 were worried that Social Security would run dry within their lifetimes. A decade ago, that figure stood at 66 percent, suggesting deteriorating confidence in the system.

The findings come as the future of Social Security has been the subject of ongoing scrutiny and debate, which has intensified in the 2024 presidential election cycle as candidates pitch ideas for what to do with a system that is fast running out of money.

Brink of Bankruptcy

Social Security is facing future challenges due to factors like inflation and lower-than-expected tax revenue.

A recent projection by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimated that the Social Security trust fund, which consists of two smaller funds—the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund and the Disability Insurance (DI) trust fund—will run dry in 2033.

“Upon insolvency, the law mandates that the OASI trust fund can only spend in amounts equal to incoming trust fund revenue, which means that all 70 million retirees, dependents, and survivors—regardless of age, income, or need—will see their benefits cut by 23 percent,” the analysis states.

This means that, in 2033, annual benefits for the average newly retired dual-income couple would be cut by over $17,000.

“For a typical dual-income couple retiring in 2033, we estimate this would represent an immediate $17,400 cut in current dollar annual benefits and an immediate $13,100 cut for a typical single-income couple,” the analysis states.

Future of Social Security

There have been calls by lawmakers to come up with a fix to prevent Social Security from running dry.

For instance, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing this summer that Congress should follow the example of President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.) from the 1980s.

“The only way to reach a deal on Social Security is to follow the Reagan–O'Neill model. That means Congress and the president working in a bipartisan fashion and keeping a chain, a range of options on the table,” Mr. Grassley said, referring to the 1983 agreement that stabilized Social Security for decades.

The Reagan-O'Neill model was a combination of increasing payroll taxes and gradually raising the retirement age.

The future of Social Security has also become a key political talking point as the 2024 presidential campaign heats up.

The CRFB analysis states that any 2024 presidential candidate who promises not to touch Social Security is “implicitly endorsing a 23 percent across-the-board benefit cut” for some 70 million retirees when the fund runs out of money within 10 years.

Former President Donald Trump—the frontrunner by far for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination—has warned his fellow Republicans not to cut Social Security benefits, while President Joe Biden has vowed to push back against any GOP-led efforts to slash Social Security payments.

‘Don’t Destroy It’

In January 2023, when Republicans were mulling cuts to entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, amid discussions on Capitol Hill about raising the debt ceiling, President Trump issued a video message, saying, “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.”

Rather than cutting “the benefits our senior citizens worked for and paid for their entire lives,” he suggested cutting “the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars going to corrupt foreign countries,” the “mass releases of illegal aliens that are depleting our social safety net,” the “left-wing gender programs from our military,” the “billions being spent on climate extremism,” and to “cut waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere that we can find it.”

“Save Social Security,” he said. “Don’t destroy it.”

Meanwhile, in his third State of the Union Address on Feb. 7, President Biden accused Republicans of wanting “Medicare and Social Security to sunset” rather than “making the wealthy pay their fair share.”

“Those benefits belong to the American people. They earned it,” he said, vowing that “if anyone tries to cut Social Security,” he would “stop them.”

“I’ll veto it,” he said, adding that he would never allow the program to be taken away, “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

Other presidential hopefuls on the Republican side, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, have both said that Social Security should be reformed as the current arrangement is unsustainable.

Ms. Haley has called for raising the retirement age while cutting benefits, while Mr. DeSantis has similarly pointed to the need to reform the system, expressing openness to changing eligibility requirements for Americans currently in their 30s and 40s.