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On June 18, 2025, the Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the program’s financial and actuarial status. In 2024, the Social Security program paid benefits of $1.47 trillion to about 68 million beneficiaries. According to the report, the combined assets of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds are projected to be depleted in 2034 (one year earlier than projected last year). Should this occur, the Social Security program would be able to pay only 81% of scheduled annual benefits at that time. 

Furthermore, the OASI Trust Fund is projected to be depleted in 2033 (the same as last year’s estimate) with 77% of benefits payable at that time. The DI Trust Fund is not projected to be depleted during the 75-year period ending in 2099. According to the report, the Trustees project that the total annual cost of the program will exceed total annual income in all future years, as it has since 2021. In 2024, total income (including interest) to the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds amounted to $1.42 trillion and total expenditures from the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds amounted to $1.48 trillion.

Over the 75-year long-range period from 2025 to 2099, the actuarial deficit of the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds is 3.82% of taxable payroll, up from 3.50% in 2024. Expressed in relation to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the annual cost of Social Security benefits is projected to increase from 5.3% of GDP in 2025 to a peak of about 6.4% in 2079, and decline to 6.1% by 2099.  

The report indicated that one of the primary changes that had the largest effect on the actuarial deficit was the enactment of the Social Security Fairness Act on January 5, 2025. The new legislation repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO).

These provisions were originally designed to address perceived disparities in Social Security benefits for workers who spent some or all of their careers in a non-covered position. The WEP reduced Social Security benefits for those employees who also received a pension or disability benefit from an employer for services in a non-covered position, while the GPO reduced the Social Security benefits for spouses, widows and widowers who also received government pensions of their own.

The WEP and GPO reduced or eliminated the Social Security benefits for over 3.2 million individuals who received a pension based on a non-covered position. Due to the passage of the new Act, the repeal of these provisions increased the Social Security benefits for individuals who received pensions based on work not covered by Social Security.

The Trustees recommended that lawmakers address the trust fund deficits in a timely way in order to gradually phase-in the necessary changes to allow workers and beneficiaries time to adjust to them as well as to protect future generations.   

The report is available here.