That chart is why we need not worry about them. They are UNFUNDED. That means that the benefits are reduced, and the problem goes away. Wait the reduction of benefits is the problem. You are focused on the fuse (the Trust Fund) instead of the bomb (the reduction of benefits).

You are conflating issues. The Trust Fund represents the only legal obligation that the taxpayers have to the system. That amount is no different than the bonds held by China or private pensions. The amount that I am talking about is the amount of cash that the system has promised for which there is NO revenue source.

This is a blog piece on why I don't worry about what we call the debt in the SSTF that I put here on Hacker :

The fundamental problem with your analysis is that the government doesn't owe SS benefits. It collects and distributes benefits. It has no obligation to pay them. This is like a brokerage taking money out of your account in an asset sweep. The brokerage puts the dollar in their pocket, and puts the dollar of repo into…

What the hell is a 'valid promise'? Is that somehow different from a promise, or a real promise. Promise isn't the measure of the asset. It is the creditworthiness that is underneath the promise. The creditworthiness of the government security is doesn't change because of who holds the bond.

My name is a joke about economists. I have a background but the degree mainly taught me about the supply and demand for the academics of economics. FDR actually objected to the tax and redistribute idea to the point where he forced a complete rewrite of the system - let me know if you want the link at SSA. Anytime…

If you are going to change Social Security in that way, why are you keeping the name. On of the cornerstone foundations of the program is that it would not be means tested. If you are going to end it, just end it. We are changing a program that was designed to lower the statistical likelihood of poverty ridden old-age…

Your benefits are essentially a promise. When you contribute today, your earnings are recorded, and you are issued a promise of future benefits based on that contribution. FDR said we put those contributions in place to give workers a legal, moral, and political right to benefits. The whole point of the contribution…

This is a projection piece from SSA on means testing :

It cannot be a tax. When you pay SS, you get a promise for benefits in the future. That isn't a tax. That is a loan. It may be a low-quality loan, but it isn't a tax. If you are working a 36th year, and your earnings are so low that you will not get any benefit increase it is a tax. When you give a dollar today for a…

I think you will find that private pensions are having similar problems. The obsession with IOUs is an appeal to an emotional response that reason can’t create. The private pensions hold the same pretend assets the only difference is the name of the pension fund manager. The reality of the asset is determined by the…

The only thing that allows SS to pay full benefits is the Trust Fund. What you are proposing is the pay-as-you-go model that put the system into insolvency in 1983. The 2.7 trillion would exist. The only difference is that it would be held by someone other than SS. The premise of your belief is that the Trust Fund…

You are right that will not be popular. But I don’t think that it plugs the hole in the system anyway unless you eliminate benefits at a pretty low level. You have to keep in mind that seniors in the 'wealthy' category already return up to 1/3rd of the benefits in taxes.

That is 2009. The problem is that all of your figures are expressed in present value numbers. That means that they increase with the passage of time. We added 900 billion in funded liabilities in SS just because we changed the calendar year from 2014 to 2015. This is why the MF article is useless - it quotes…

Actually, there is no mechanism to allocate the shortfall. Systemwide we expect 21% reductions increasing to 27%. You cannot translate that into the individual benefit level. They may get 100%, and they may get zero. In total, the system will drop benefit levels 20+%

It is less optimism and more out of date research. The problem isn't what you get, it is what are you going to do when your grandparents have their benefits cut.

I have to say that the editing functions on the comments here are as bad as I have ever seen.

You could say the same of any bond that the government has issued. Paying back China for the money spent 20 years ago is only going to make things worse as well. Paying back private pensions for the money spent 20 years ago is only going to make things worse. There is no difference between the bonds held by SSTF and…

Essentially you mean that Social Security is like every other pension on earth, which are filled with IOUs. The IOUs in the SSTF are actually better than the ones held by private pensions. Where is all of the drama from private pension managers.

You say it doesn’t exist. The Social Security Administration says that it does. Now who to believe....