Social Security: Keep the Promise and Share the Repair

Current law contains the cut politicians deny

The 2026 Trustees project OASI reserve depletion in the fourth quarter of 2032, followed by 78 percent payment of scheduled benefits from continuing income. On a hypothetical combined OASI and Disability Insurance basis, reserves are depleted in 2034 and 83 percent remains payable at depletion. The distinction matters legally and operationally, but both figures point to the same political fact: delay does not preserve benefits. It makes the eventual change larger and more abrupt.

Social Security should remain social insurance financed primarily through dedicated contributions. Benefits should not become an annual discretionary appropriation, and the trust funds should not become an accounting device for unrelated spending. Restoring solvency requires enough recurring revenue to match recurring promises, along with targeted benefit design that protects adequacy.

Restore contributions on high wages

The current system taxes wages only up to an annually adjusted maximum. The Shared Repair keeps that maximum and applies the full combined OASDI rate again above $400,000 beginning in 2028. The upper threshold stays at $400,000 until the ordinary taxable maximum reaches it. At that point all wages are covered and the unified contribution base resumes ordinary wage indexing. This creates a temporary untaxed gap that closes over time instead of persisting indefinitely.

Newly taxed earnings receive a secondary benefit formula factor of 2 percent, much lower than the factors applying to lower portions of a worker's career earnings. That preserves the principle that contributions create an earned benefit while directing most new revenue to solvency. The Social Security Administration already publishes actuarial estimates for similar designs. A tax-above-$400,000 option evaluated against the 2024 Trustees baseline was estimated to eliminate about 62 percent of the long-range shortfall. The exact share under the 2026 baseline will differ and must be rescored.

This provision asks more from people who gained the most from decades of wage growth. It does not pretend they alone can finance new minimum benefits, caregiver credits, and a wider 2026 shortfall without either a higher threshold rate or another revenue source.

A contribution small enough to plan around

The combined contribution rate is 12.4 percent, split evenly between employee and employer. The proposal increases it by 0.1 percentage point each year from 2028 through 2045. Each side therefore adds 0.05 point annually, reaching 7.1 percent each and 14.2 percent combined.

At full phase-in, an employee with $60,000 in covered wages would contribute $540 more per year than under the current 6.2 percent employee rate, before the low-earner credit. The employer would contribute the same. The increase is material. Phasing makes it predictable and spreads adjustment across cohorts rather than sending the full bill to a future Congress.

For the lowest 40 percent of covered earners, a refundable income-tax credit offsets the employee-side increase. The credit is paid from general revenue and does not reduce trust-fund receipts. It phases out gradually to avoid a benefit cliff. This keeps the shared-contribution principle while protecting households for whom a few hundred dollars changes food, rent, or utility security.

Self-employed workers pay both shares today and would face both increases. Their credit should offset the low-wage employee-equivalent share, and the existing income-tax deduction for the employer-equivalent share remains. That still creates a cost for sole proprietors, which should be stated rather than hidden.

Improve adequacy where the insurance matters most

A solvent program can still be inadequate. The proposal phases in a minimum benefit reaching 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline for a worker with 30 years of covered work, with a proportional schedule for 10 to 29 years. Years of qualifying caregiving for a child under six or a dependent person with substantial care needs receive progressive deemed-earnings credits for up to five years. The credit cannot be double-counted among caregivers and uses existing birth, disability, tax, and earnings records with notice and correction.

The surviving-spouse formula should include a floor for long-married low-income households so the death of a spouse does not cause an avoidable plunge into poverty. These improvements should be actuarially priced as part of the package. They are not funded by calling them small.

The party rejects a blanket retirement-age increase. Raising the full retirement age is a lifetime benefit reduction for a person claiming at any fixed age. Its burden falls harder on people with shorter life expectancy, early labor-force entry, disability risk, and jobs that cannot be sustained into the late sixties. People who want to work longer should be able to do so through flexible partial retirement and clear earnings rules, but that choice should not become the financing mechanism for everyone.

A guardrail that forces action before crisis

No 75-year projection is certain. Fertility, immigration, wages, productivity, disability, and longevity will change. That uncertainty is an argument for a correction mechanism, not for waiting until reserves are nearly gone.

Every four years, following a Trustees report, the Chief Actuary should calculate the 75-year actuarial balance under the enacted package. The target corridor is minus 0.5 to plus 1.0 percent of taxable payroll. If the balance is below the corridor for two consecutive reports, the combined contribution rate rises 0.05 percentage point annually until the balance returns or a cumulative 0.5 point trigger cap is reached. Employer and employee split the adjustment. If the balance remains above the upper bound for two reports, scheduled trigger increases pause or reverse prospectively.

Congress may replace any automatic adjustment with a package certified to achieve equal or better 75-year balance. The trigger cannot cut nominal benefits, reduce benefits for current recipients, or reduce scheduled benefits for the bottom 60 percent of lifetime earners. A supermajority should not be required; elected officials remain able to legislate. The guardrail changes the default from sudden benefit loss to a gradual, visible correction.

Administration is part of the promise

People experience Social Security through field offices, phones, disability evidence, notices, representative payees, and appeals. Digital modernization should allow a worker to see the evidence used, correct earnings, track a claim, authorize a helper, and obtain an accessible statement. It should not force elderly, disabled, rural, low-literacy, or limited-English users into an online-only channel.

Annual statements should show scheduled benefits and payable benefits under current projections, contribution history, the uncertainty around depletion dates, and the effect of enacted reforms. Plain language can turn abstract trust-fund warnings into democratic accountability without falsely presenting a 75-year estimate as destiny.