What’s happening
A bipartisan group of senators is reportedly considering a plan that would raise the full retirement age for Social Security to 70 as a way to prevent the program from becoming insolvent in the next decade.
Social Security is often referred to as the “third rail” of American politics. Any lawmaker who dares touch the nation’s largest entitlement program, the saying goes, is in for a shocking and abrupt political death. But as popular as it is, the program’s future stability is very much in doubt. A trust fund that helps cover the costs of retirement benefits is on pace to run out of money in 2034. If that’s allowed to happen, benefits across the board would automatically be cut by nearly a quarter.
Since 1935, Social Security has provided financial support to older Americans to prevent them from slipping into poverty after they’ve left the workforce. In 2022, the government spent $1.2 trillion on Social Security benefits, just under 20% of the entire federal budget. Those funds helped support more than 48 million retired Americans, as well as millions of disabled people and relatives of deceased workers.
With many lawmakers hesitant to increase taxes or cut Social Security benefits, the idea of increasing the retirement age has often been raised as a way to decrease spending without hurting the incomes of people who rely on the program right now. Under the current system, people can begin collecting Social Security benefits when they turn 62, but they receive less money every month than they would if they had waited until they reached what’s known as the full retirement age — currently 67 for anyone born after 1960. Typically, proposals to raise the retirement age call for leaving that minimum of 62 in place while gradually increasing the full retirement age.
Why there’s debate
Supporters of the idea say raising the full retirement age is the least painful option for securing Social Security’s long-term future. “You have to recognize that life expectancy is a lot more today than it was when Social Security was established,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told NBC News last week. Others say slowly increasing the age over a number of years would solidify the program’s budget while sparing seniors from the shock of a sudden benefit cut and allow younger workers to plan for the change during their careers. Many point to the success of a law passed in 1983, which saved billions by gradually shifting full retirement from 65 to 67.
But opponents say that raising the retirement age is just a benefit cut by another name, since the ultimate result would be less money in the pockets of seniors. They argue that the change would be especially harmful to poor Americans, who are more likely to stop working before they want to and to rely on Social Security as their only source of income. Some also say the proposal is based on the false premise that retirement is always a matter of choice, when in reality many people are forced to leave the workforce before they’d like to because of health issues, the physical demands of their jobs or age discrimination.
Many Democrats argue that it would be unnecessary to increase the retirement age if Congress were willing to raise taxes on the rich. “It’s a question of math, and it’s a question of values,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., argued on Twitter. The GOP, for its part, has mostly moved away from plans like privatizing Social Security, but the concept still enjoys support among some Republicans.
