Social Security’s math problem is not going away

Last week, the Social Security Administration announced a 3.6% cost-of-living raise for 2027, about $75 more per month for the average retiree. In Wyoming, where roughly 130,000 people (more than one in five residents) receive benefits, that money matters. If you paid in, you deserve it. It also does nothing about the much larger problem ahead.

According to the 2026 Trustees Report, the retirement and survivors trust fund can pay full benefits only through late 2032. After that, incoming payroll taxes are projected to cover about 78% of scheduled benefits. Unless Congress acts, that is a 22% cut across the board, which is roughly $475 per month off today’s average check. That reduces monthly checks by about six times last week’s increase. The cause is largely demographic: The country went from 16 workers per retiree in 1950 to 2.7 today, as Americans have fewer children and live longer.

Someone who is already retired or approaching retirement might ask, “Why should I care? I already paid in.” Because under current law, waiting means taking that sudden 22% cut when you have the least room to financially absorb it. People who have paid in for decades deserve better than a last-minute surprise. Acting early is the only reliable way to keep the promise that was made to them.

I’m 35. Like most Wyoming workers, I pay 6.2% of every paycheck into the system, and my employer matches it. I turn 67 in 2058. A Cato Institute poll found that seven in 10 Americans expect benefit cuts, and 78% of Gen Z expects less than their full benefits. Young families are paying full freight while planning as if the benefit may not be there. That arrangement is neither fair nor honest. 

My neighbor, Travis, an engineer with two kids under 5, pays into Social Security every paycheck and has stopped counting on it. “I’m saving for retirement like it won’t be there,” he tells me, “and I still have to pay for it.”

Social Security was created in 1935 as a basic floor against poverty in old age, not a full pension. That original purpose remains the right test for any reform. Four principles should guide the work:

• Protect those closest to retirement. Anyone already retired or within roughly 20 years of full retirement age should keep every benefit they were promised. They planned their lives around that commitment and should not have the rules changed late in the game.

• Share the burden. Protecting the safety net has a real cost, and no serious reform is painless. The cost should be distributed across generations rather than dropped entirely on the young. Delays only make the eventual adjustment steeper and less fair.

• Make changes gradual and early. Adjustments that affect younger workers should be phased in over decades with clear notice. Small, predictable changes made now are far preferable to a large, sudden cut forced by crisis.

• Preserve the floor. Whatever else changes, we must protect the core mission of keeping older Americans and surviving families out of poverty, including disability and survivor benefits.

The specifics of what changes, for whom, and how fast deserve a longer debate than one op-ed allows, and I don’t claim to have settled them. Nearly 70% of Americans support empowering an independent, nonpartisan commission to develop options. It has worked before: A bipartisan commission helped Congress avert a similar crisis in 1983. Congress should pursue a similar effort now and give it a hard one-year deadline so that concrete proposals are public before the 2028 elections.

Wyoming has a long record of living within its means and keeping its word. Both habits are needed here. A cliff that is clearly visible can still be avoided, but only if the country is willing to face the numbers while there is still time to act.