Social Security: Keep the Promise and Share the Repair

What is broken and why it matters

What we would change

1. 1

   Protect people already relying on the promise. Pay scheduled benefits to current beneficiaries and workers age 55 or older at enactment. Reject an across-the-board increase in the retirement age. People in physically demanding work and communities with lower healthy life expectancy should not finance the system through more years they may not be able to work.

2. 2

   Restore the wage contribution base. Beginning in 2028, apply the payroll contribution to wages above $400,000. Hold that upper threshold fixed until the ordinary taxable maximum reaches it, at which point all wages become subject to contribution and the unified base resumes wage indexing. Give additional taxed earnings a small 2 percent benefit formula factor so Social Security remains contributory without returning most of the new revenue to the highest earners.

3. 3

   Make a modest contribution together. From 2028 through 2045, raise the combined rate by 0.1 percentage point per year, split equally between employee and employer. The employee rate rises gradually from 6.2 to 7.1 percent and the employer rate does the same. A refundable worker credit outside the trust funds offsets the employee increase for the lowest 40 percent of earners, financed from general revenue.

4. 4

   Strengthen the floor. Phase in a minimum benefit equal to at least 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline for a worker with 30 covered years. Credit up to five years of qualifying care for a young child or dependent family member, with progressive benefit credit and identity and earnings safeguards. Improve the surviving-spouse floor for long-married low-income households.

5. 5

   Install a solvency corridor. Every four years, the Chief Actuary should publish a 75-year valuation of the enacted package. If the actuarial balance falls outside a narrow corridor, a small, capped contribution adjustment begins prospectively unless Congress enacts an equally solvent alternative. Automatic adjustment cannot reduce benefits for current recipients or the bottom 60 percent of lifetime earners.

6. 6

   Make the promise understandable. Give every worker a plain-language annual statement with estimated benefits, contributions, the trust funds' projected status, uncertainty ranges, and how a solvency trigger would work. Modernize disability and retirement service with staffed human channels, accessible offices, and appeal rights alongside digital tools.