AARP: New Social Security report should be ‘wake-up call’

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After the Trump administration on Tuesday released its annual report on Social Security and its projected future, officials from AARP urged action to protect the program.

The annual report from the board of trustees of Social Security and Medicare stated that Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund will be able to pay 100 percent of its total scheduled benefits until the fourth quarter of 2032 — one quarter earlier than the trustees projected last year.

After that, the OASI fund will only be able to cover 78 percent of total scheduled benefits, an increase of 1 percentage point relative to last year’s report.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling and Frank Bisignano, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), signed off on this year’s report.

If combined, which the federal government cannot legally do, the OASI fund and Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund would be able to pay all benefits until the third quarter of 2034, at which point their combined income would be enough to pay for 83 percent of scheduled benefits.

Myechia Minter-Jordan, the CEO of AARP, said Tuesday that the report indicates the need for Congress “to act in a bipartisan way to ensure” Social Security remains “strong” for future generations.

“This should be a wake-up call: Congress needs to act,” Minter-Jordan said in a release. “Americans have worked hard and paid into Social Security their entire lives, and they deserve to count on it when they retire.”

As of April, more than 75.4 million Americans received Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income or both, according to the SSA.

The trustees report stated that the long-term finances of the combined trust fund worsened due to declining fertility rates and lower net migration. The fertility rate in the U.S. has declined from 69.5 births per 1,000 women of reproductive age in 2007 to a record-low of 53.1 births per 1,000 women last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report also cited the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the tax and spending legislation that President Trump signed into law last July, as a contributing factor to the worsening outlook for Social Security.

The measure increased the standard deduction $15,750 for single filers and $31,500 for married couples filing jointly. It also established a new $6,000 deduction for seniors.

While the AARP noted that it supported the latter provision, the trustees report noted that the changes to the tax code by the OBBBA will lead to the OASI and DI funds receiving “lower levels of revenue” from taxation of Social Security benefits.

Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund, meanwhile, will be able to pay the entirety of its scheduled benefits until the second quarter of 2033, also a quarter earlier than the trustees projected in 2025. At that point, the HI fund will be able to pay 89 percent of scheduled benefits.

Last month, officials from AARP said on a press call that the looming deadline for the OASI fund does not spell doom for Social Security.

“It doesn’t mean that Social Security will stop paying benefits. It does not mean the program is bankrupt,” said Rich Johnson, the vice president of financial security with the AARP Public Policy Institute.

But Nancy LeaMond, the organization’s executive vice president and chief advocacy officer, said the legislative branch has “hundreds of tools in its toolbox” to address the impending financial issues for Social Security. She specifically pushed for expanding workplace retirement accounts — which is the subject of bipartisan legislation on Capitol Hill and an April executive order from Trump.

In Tuesday’s release, LeaMond reiterated that the AARP opposes reductions to Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment, privatization of the program and an increase to the retirement age. Bisignano said in September that raising the retirement age is not under consideration.

“At a time when the future of Social Security is being tested by proposals that would weaken the program, the trustees’ report highlights the need for Congress to protect what people have earned,” Minter-Jordan said Tuesday. “We will not let special interests push proposals to cut Social Security for middle-class families.”​

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