CLOWARD AND PIVEN SMILE: Social Security and Medicare Trustees Release 2025 Reports.

The looming insolvency of Social Security’s retirement program will lead to a 23 percent across-the-board benefit cut when today’s 59-year-olds reach the Full Retirement Age and when today’s youngest retirees turn 70. On a theoretically combined basis, beneficiaries will face a 19 percent benefit cut just one year later.

The Medicare Trustees project the HI trust fund will also be exhausted in 2033, leading to an 11 percent cut in HI payments. That cut, which is projected to grow for at least the following decade, could jeopardize access to health care for seniors and some workers with disabilities.

The best time to tackle this problem was 20 years ago, but George W. Bush got shut down by Congress. The next best time is right now, but there seems to be even less determination than there was in 2005.