Trustees for the Social Security trust fund have revised their forecasts, and although the pandemic weighed heavily on the system, it was not as bad as originally thought. The program is forecasted to be out of funds by 2034, just one year sooner than they had forecast in their April 2020 report. Unless Congress shores up the fund, benefits will be automatically reduced starting in 2034. Also weighing heavily on Social Security is the fact that inflation has increased, pushing up the cost of living increase which will further deplete funds. “There is an incredible amount of uncertainty,” one senior administration official said. “We haven’t lived through a pandemic like this in over 100 years, so we don’t know what the effects are.”
