Young people always worry about Social Security. Older people are joining them.

USA Today

a day ago

Americans are worrying more about Social Security, and the Trump administration may be partly to blame.
In an AARP survey released July 22, only 36% of Americans voiced confidence in the future of the retirement trust fund, down from 43% in 2020.
Another July survey, from the nonprofit Alliance for Lifetime Income, found that 58% of older Americans fear Social Security cuts because of recent news about potential changes to the program.
'These fears are not new. But I do think they are growing,' said Jean Chatzky, an education fellow with the Alliance's Retirement Income Institute and CEO of HerMoney.
How soon will Social Security run out of money?
Fears of a Social Security shortfall have loomed for decades. Lately, though, the agency's fiscal plight seems to be getting worse.
New federal projections, released in June, show the combined Social Security trust funds will run short in 2034. That date is one year earlier than the Social Security Administration reported a year ago.
The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, which pays benefits to retirees and their families, is fully funded only until 2033.
'And I think that's close enough in the viewfinder for even older people to think, 'Holy moly, what's going to happen to me?'' Chatzky said.
Americans young and old worry about Social Security
Younger Americans tend to worry more about Social Security than older Americans. In the new AARP survey, 25% of people ages 18-49 voiced confidence in the program's future, compared with 48% of those 50 and older.
The new report from the Alliance for Lifetime Income is striking, because it shows heightened Social Security fears among older Americans.
The industry group enlisted IPSOS to conduct a nationally representative survey of 3,502 adults ages 45-75. Among the findings:
Trump, DOGE cuts have disrupted Social Security
Social Security has been in the headlines all year, and not just because of the coming shortfall.
The Trump administration has thrown the agency into upheaval, with a cascade of staff cuts, rule changes, website outages and leadership shuffles, a routine that played out across the federal bureaucracy under the cost-cutting eye of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. (Musk himself eventually bowed out.)
Both Trump and Musk sowed doubt in the integrity of the venerable benefits program. In a March speech before Congress, Trump spoke of 'shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud' in Social Security. Around the same time, Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan that Social Security was 'the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.'
Taken together, the events seemed to shake public confidence. New benefit claims were up by more than 15% in March, compared with the same month a year ago.
'Fearmongering has driven people to claim benefits earlier, 'cause they're afraid they're not going to claim benefits at all,' said Leland Dudek, acting Social Security commissioner at the time, in a March public meeting.
Is Trump undermining public faith in Social Security?
Some Social Security watchdogs say the Trump administration has eroded public faith in the program.
'I think there's really been a sea change since January 20,' said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and expanding Social Security. 'I've been working on this for half a century, and I've never seen this kind of chaos and undoing of the administration of the program.'
The notion that Social Security faces a shortfall suffuses the national conversation about retirement. Older Americans wonder if their monthly checks will go down, rather than up, during their golden years. Many younger Americans have doubled down on retirement savings, partly for fear that Social Security won't fully support them.
'What we find is, whenever Social Security is in the headlines, it strikes fear and anxiety into the hearts of so many, especially those who rely so heavily on Social Security,' said Ramsey Alwin, CEO of the nonprofit National Council on Aging.
Faith in the future of Social Security hinges partly on political party. The new AARP survey found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express confidence in the program's future, by a margin of 44% to 32%. During the Obama administration, by contrast, AARP found that Democrats voiced more faith in Social Security than Republicans.
Social Security administrators, for their part, have sometimes blamed the news media for stirring up public doubt about the agency's stability. In March, they took the unusual step of posting a press release to contradict media reports about the closure of Social Security field offices.
AARP issued a rare rebuke of Social Security administrators
But not all reports of Social Security instability have come from the news media. In February, AARP, the powerful interest group for older Americans, issued a rare public rebuke of the agency.
'AARP is hearing from thousands of older Americans confused and concerned about their Social Security payments, the status of Social Security field offices, and inexcusably long wait times on the phone to get their questions answered,' said Nancy LeaMond, AARP executive vice president.
In March, AARP members peppered Congress with 2 million messages and calls about their Social Security concerns.
AARP leaders touched on that nerve in a July 22 press conference about the new survey, released to coincide with Social Security's 90th anniversary.
'We can't afford for politicians to play games with the future of Social Security,' said Myechia Minter-Jordan, CEO of AARP. 'And we'll fight as hard and as long as we need to, to ensure that Social Security remains the economic bedrock of retirement for generations to come.'