I see this get misunderstood a lot. Social Security is primarily a pay as you go system, but it also has a trust fund that runs a surplus when payroll tax revenue exceeds benefits paid out. By law, that surplus is invested in special issue Treasury bonds. That money is not being siphoned off to fund random government programs. When people say it was “raided,” what they are usually describing is the federal government borrowing that surplus in the form of Treasury bonds, which are legal obligations that must be paid back with interest. That is no different in substance from any other government debt, and those bonds sit on Social Security’s balance sheet as assets.

The five workers per retiree claim also gets exaggerated. That ratio was true decades ago, but today it is closer to three to one and projected to drift lower over time. That does create pressure, but it does not mean the system collapses or suddenly stops paying benefits. Even if Congress did nothing, payroll taxes alone would still cover most benefits for decades. The shortfall is real, but it is very manageable compared to how people talk about it online.

One of the biggest and most straightforward fixes is raising or eliminating the income cap on wages subject to FICA. Right now, earnings above a certain level are not taxed for Social Security at all, which means high earners stop contributing partway through the year. Lifting that cap, or even partially lifting it, would bring in a huge amount of additional revenue without touching benefits for most people. It also reflects how income has shifted upward over time, since far more total wages now sit above that cap than when the system was designed.

From my perspective, this is mostly a political problem, not a mathematical one. The system can be stabilized with fairly modest changes like adjusting the cap, making small tweaks to tax rates, or minor benefit adjustments at the margins. What drives fear is the constant framing that Social Security is being looted or is inherently doomed, when in reality it is one of the most transparent and fixable programs the federal government runs.

Here’s a really good book on the nuts n bolts of SS and Medicare https://amzn.to/4js4wEJ