Is the US running out of Social Security?

Overview

" There’s no denying that Americans rely heavily on Social Security benefits. Estimates from the Social Security Administration found that 97% of adults over the age of 60 are either collecting or will start collecting Social Security. As of February 2023, about one in every five residents in the US collected benefits from these funds. For such a widely used program, it’s a bit surprising that people in the US know so little about how it works. To be fair, most of the news around this program over the past decade has been about how it’s doomed in one way or another. Millennials and younger may see the money being taxed from their paychecks and believe they’ll probably never see it again, but is the program really destined to fail? And what do we stand to lose if it does?"

Production

Vox Media Studios