October 23, 2010

Treasury Needed to Borrow Money to Pay Social Security Benefits

The U.S. Treasury has needed to borrow money to pay Social Security benefits in 15 out of the last 25 months on record because the Social Security system was in deficit in those months, with the cost of monthly benefit payments exceeding the Social Security tax revenues flowing into the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance trust funds, according to data published by the Social Security Administration.

Because the overall federal budget was in deficit during this entire period, the surplus revenues Social Security earned in the remaining 10 months of the last 25 was used during those months to pay ongoing general government expenses and was not saved to pay future Social Security benefits.

The government gave the Social Security trust funds IOUs for this money.

20 comments:

  1. yup. we're boned. This is sadly not news to me.

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  2. oh my god... where are we headed?

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  3. all the bad news make me want to ignore the situation, which is of course counterproductive in some way :(

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  4. So it's just a matter of time until the stock market crashes again?

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  5. well, its bad news thats for sure... and you no what the best way to forget bad news is?

    yes you got it, sit down and do some good old philosophical musings, oh whats that? there isnt a blog for that? think again ;)

    http://hspoors.blogspot.com/ :DDD

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  6. That's so messed up. Guess we'll be working till death for real now.

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  7. Hehe, yeah, 'cause there is no "lock box"!

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