Trump Payroll Tax Cuts Deplete Social Security Funds by 2023
Donald Trump has claimed the power to unilaterally eliminate Social Security's dedicated funding. If re-elected, Trump will ensure that some Social Security benefits will stop as early as next year! In 2019, $944.5 billion (89 percent!) of total Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance income came from payroll taxes according to the Social Security Administration. https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/HowAreSocialSecurity.htm The remainder was provided by interest earnings $80.8 billion (7.6 percent) and revenue from taxation of OASDI benefits $36.5 billion (3.4 percent).
As a result, the trust fund reserves for disability benefits would be permanently depleted by the middle of the calendar year in 2021, and the trust fund reserves for retirement benefits would be permanently depleted in the middle of 2023.
Unfortunately, the Chief Actuary explains that while Social Security is required to pay retirement and disability benefits, it can only do so from money in the program's trust funds. Social Security cannot just borrow to pay benefits it has promised. So when the trust fund would be left permanently depleted in 2023, the program would have "no ability" to pay retirement benefits thereafter.