If you’re 54 or older and plan to live the average American life expectancy of 77.9 years, then you’re in good shape.
But if you’re planning to live past the year 2036, don’t count on Social Security.
And if you’re relying on Medicare, don’t even think about the math.
That’s the picture laid out in a new report released Friday by Social Security and Medicare trustees, who say the bad economy has shortened the life span of the trust funds for the nation’s two biggest benefit programs.
Currently, 46 million American seniors use Medicare. For those depending on the medical insurance plan, the hospital fund exhaustion deadline is now set at 2024, five year’s earlier than last year’s estimate.
The report says the Social Security trust fund that now helps 55 million retirees, disabled people and children who have lost parents will be exhausted in 2036, one year earlier than before.
The trustees predicted that Social Security recipients, who now average $1,077.22 in monthly payments, will receive a 0.7 cost of living bump in 2012 even while noting that the cost of funding the program will jump dramatically in the next 24 years.
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2 Responses
hoe does it work? don’t u get back the $$ that comes off your paycheck while u r employed? isn’t it like a piggy bank, just holding ur money 4 u?
No. They don’t “hold” the money. The money you pay in is used to pay-out to existing beneficiaries. The plan is that when you retire, the workers paying in at that time will support you. Assuming, of course, that benefits haven’t increased past the point where the payments can keep up. And that assumption is why we are in the mess we are in.