12 Questions Clients Will Ask About Their Social Security Benefits

Each year, the board of trustees tasked with overseeing Social Security publishes a detailed status update about the retirement income insurance program's financial woes, and the newly published 2023 report is an eye-opener. According to the trustees, the main trust fund used to support the payment of retirement benefits is on track to become depleted in 2033, at which time benefits would need to be cut by more than 20%. The updated insolvency date is one year sooner than what was projected last year, with the decline in funding status stemming from a variety of interrelated factors. These range from more challenging economic conditions to the outsize cost-of-living adjustments seen in 2022 and 2023. The new report is "sobering but not surprising," Jason Fichtner, a former chief economist for the Social Security Administration who is now vice president and chief economist at the Bipartisan Policy Center and senior fellow with the Alliance for Lifetime Income, says in a new interview with ThinkAdvisor. "We were already talking about the seriousness of Social Security's solvency problems back when I was at the SSA during the first Obama administration," Fichtner says, noting that he himself signed three annual reports. "We have known for some time that we would be facing a funding crisis in the early to mid-2030s, and that's exactly what this report shows." Like other experts tracking the issue, Fichtner says lawmakers in Washington have a broad continuum of policy options that would close or reduce Social Security's long-term financing shortfall. Sadly, though, that doesn't mean a fix will be easy or that policymakers will soon find consensus. While he has faith in the long-term durability of the program, Fichtner says he fears Congress will continue kicking the can down the road "until we are at a moment of true crisis." "While the trustees recommend that lawmakers address the projected trust fund shortfalls in a timely way, that's not very likely, in my view," Fichtner says. "I do not expect that our divided government will strike a solution in the next few years, and therefore the eventual fixes are going to have to be more dramatic than those we are discussing today." What is clear right now, Fichtner and others agree, is that financial advisors are very likely to field pressing and anxious question from their clients with respect to the solvency of the Social Security program — and what the projected funding shortfalls will mean for their retirement plans. With that challenge in mind, Fichtner offered up answers to 12 questions financial advisors are likely to hear from anxious clients in the months and years ahead. See the slideshow for Fichtner's insights, gleaned from years of close study of Social Security's funding challenges.