Half of Americans who haven’t retired yet expect to rely on Social Security benefits, but more than 70% of them are concerned that the retirement benefits they’ve been promised won’t be there for them, a new Bankrate survey showed.

More than three-quarters of current retirees rely on Social Security to pay necessary expenses, Bankrate found.

A concerning deadline is looming for many Americans: The Social Security trust fund is projected to be exhausted in 2033. But the trust fund isn’t what many Americans think it is, one expert said.

Misunderstandings about the nature of Social Security are a big reason the program’s solvency remains an ongoing problem, said Romina Boccia of the Cato Institute.

“Perhaps the best way to explain what the Social Security trust fund is, is by explaining what it isn’t,” Boccia said. “And that is a trust fund.”

Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian-leaning think tank, said the Social Security trust fund is more of a political construct than a true repository of savings.

The main source of income for Social Security is payroll taxes on working Americans, which support retirees. Until 2010, workers paid more in Social Security taxes than what the federal government paid out in benefits, Boccia said.

Since then, Social Security has borrowed more than $1 trillion to bridge the gap. The government is expected to borrow another $4 trillion to make up the Social Security deficit between now and 2033. The Social Security Administration’s legal borrowing authority will run out in 2033. That’s what people think of as the trust fund becoming exhausted.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be any money for retirees in 2034. But it does mean retirees can only be paid based on what’s currently coming in—mainly payroll taxes—which would be the equivalent of a roughly 20% across-the-board cut in benefits.

Congress is likely to act before then, but the problem isn’t going to get easier to solve.

“Those deficits are accelerating,” Boccia said.

When Social Security collected more money than it needed to provide benefits, as it did before 2010, the government spent the surplus elsewhere, Boccia said. Now, the trust fund is essentially a “piggy bank that holds only IOUs” issued by the Treasury to the Social Security Administration so retirees can get their benefits.

“Perhaps a technical way of describing it is that it’s an intragovernmental accounting ledger,” Boccia said.

The government has been shuffling deck chairs around to maintain Social Security benefit levels for the last 14 years, Boccia said.

“Some of those deck chairs have fallen overboard,” she said.

Shifting demographics pose a big problem for Social Security, Boccia said. People are living longer, but she said the retirement age hasn’t been adjusted accordingly. Fertility has declined, meaning fewer new workers are generating tax revenue for retiree benefits.

In the 1950s, 16 workers paid taxes for every Social Security beneficiary, Boccia said. Now, there are just 2.7 workers covering the costs for each beneficiary.

Benefits are also becoming more expensive in real terms, meaning above inflation, Boccia said. That’s due to Social Security’s benefit formula, which provides new recipients with a one-time productivity increase based on wage growth in the economy, she said.

The simplest and most politically viable solution to fix Social Security would be to slow the growth of future benefits, Boccia said.

Index initial benefits to prices instead of wages, she said. That change alone would close about 80% of the current funding shortfall.

She said her preferred reform would be “a more bottoms-up approach” introducing some type of universal flat benefit.

By moving away from an earnings-related benefit toward one based on years worked, this change would better distribute benefits to those who need financial aid in old age the most, she said.

For example, the flat rate could be 125% above the federal poverty level. That would honor the original intent of Social Security, which was to protect seniors against poverty in retirement.

“The beauty of such a more fundamental change is that you give people certainty about the size of the benefit that they can expect in retirement, which makes it much easier for people to plan their own savings and investment in order to supplement the basic benefit they will receive from the government,” Boccia said.

Does the government need to raise taxes to keep Social Security viable for future generations? Boccia said higher taxes aren’t absolutely required.

“But the question is, is it going to be politically viable to make any Social Security reforms that do not involve higher taxes on some Americans,” she said.

Social Security reform is a tough one for politicians to tackle. No one wants to pay higher taxes, and no one wants their retirement benefits slashed. Boccia said a congressionally established fiscal commission could be given the authority to reform Social Security.

“Then, by leaving the details to the commission, Congress can have political cover … for unpopular changes,” she said.

Boccia said Americans should be more worried about the growing national debt than their Social Security benefits disappearing a decade from now.

“The program has been around for 90 years,” she said. “And the most likely scenario without meaningful reforms is that Congress will decide to borrow more money and basically ignore the 2033 borrowing authority limit and just blow right through it, the way that they blow through the debt limit every time it comes up.”

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