Incoming Senate class will be in office when Social Security's retirement trust fund is projected to run dry

The math on Social Security is not complicated. The trustees' 2026 annual report, released in June, projects the retirement trust fund (Old-Age and Survivors Insurance) will exhaust its reserves in the fourth quarter of 2032. After that, incoming payroll taxes would cover about 78% of scheduled benefits. That is an automatic cut of roughly 22% unless Congress acts.

The senators elected Tuesday, Nov. 3, to full terms serve until January 2033. The deadline lands on their watch.

Democrats won control of the Senate. Seventeen newcomers from both parties will arrive in the next Congress. Because Social Security cannot be changed through budget reconciliation, a fix will likely need 60 votes and support from both parties.

What the newcomers have said

Most of the Democratic class wants more revenue from high earners. Today, the 12.4% payroll tax applies only to the first $184,500 of earnings.

• Juliana Stratton (Illinois) said she would eliminate the cap.
• Josh Turek (Iowa) said he would lift the cap and opposes raising the full retirement age.
• Adam Hamilton (Kansas) would raise the cap rather than eliminate it, arguing a $1 million earner shouldn't pay the same Social Security tax as someone earning $184,500. He took no firm position on retirement age.
• Troy Jackson (Maine) wrote in a September Bangor Daily News op-ed that he would scrap the cap and increase benefits, while ruling out privatization and a higher retirement age.
• Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan) said in his final debate the cap should be removed and benefits shouldn't be taxed.
• Peggy Flanagan (Minnesota) backs Sen. Bernie Sanders' Social Security Expansion Act, which would tax earnings above $250,000, phase out the cap and raise benefits.
• James Talarico (Texas) proposes eliminating the cap only for people earning more than $400,000.
• Chris Pappas (New Hampshire) opposes raising the retirement age, benefit cuts and privatization.
• Roy Cooper (North Carolina) opposes benefit cuts and says wealthy Americans should contribute more, without naming a mechanism.

The Republicans in the class were vaguer. Andy Barr (Kentucky) wants no changes for current retirees and bipartisan reforms for younger generations, including more private and employer-sponsored retirement savings. He named no specific tax or benefit change. Kurt Alme (Montana) proposed redirecting money saved by fighting waste, fraud and abuse elsewhere in government to Social Security.

The numbers behind the proposals

Social Security's actuaries estimate that eliminating the cap starting in 2027, without paying higher benefits on the added earnings, would close about 58% of the program's projected 75-year shortfall. That is a big share, but not all of it.

Repealing the federal tax on benefits, which some candidates support, is a different matter. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated in July that doing so without replacing the revenue would cost Social Security about $1 trillion over 10 years and Medicare another $700 billion.

The trustees also estimate that if Congress combined the retirement and disability trust funds, reserves would last until 2034, when revenue would cover about 83% of scheduled benefits. That would take legislation.

Competing visions

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, said in a statement that Democrats "should vote on legislation that expands benefits with no cuts" and that it should require "the wealthiest Americans, like Elon Musk, to finally start paying their fair share."

The fiscal-hawk argument runs the other way. Writing in the Epoch Times on Nov. 5, Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy said few candidates said "a substantive word" about the issue while campaigning. She wrote that lawmakers will choose between a 22% cut, redesigning the program, or borrowing trillions more to avoid cuts.

De Rugy cited AdImpact data, as reported by The Wall Street Journal: only 30 political ads this cycle mentioned the debt or deficit, versus 140 in 2018. She also pointed to debt held by the public at 100% of GDP, a deficit near $2 trillion (6.2% of GDP) and a 30-year Treasury yield around 5.31%. Those figures are her characterization of the fiscal backdrop.

MarketWatch reported that Republicans have tended to look at changes that amount to benefit cuts, such as raising the full retirement age, as in the 2024 presidential race.

Bills in play

Two bipartisan efforts focus on process rather than substance.

The PROMISE Act, introduced in July by a bipartisan group including Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, would direct the Social Security Advisory Board to develop a proposal keeping the program solvent for at least 50 years. That proposal would then go through Congress. "Congress has known about this challenge for more than a decade, but it has not taken up these politically challenging issues," Durbin said.

Representatives Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) introduced H.R. 9187 in June. It would create a 13-member commission modeled on the 1983 Greenspan Commission, with one year to produce a plan and a guaranteed floor vote once both parties reach consensus. It was referred to Ways and Means and has seen no further action. If it does not pass before the end of the year, it dies when the 119th Congress ends.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said in a June 23 New York Times op-ed that they are working on legislation to lift the payroll tax cap entirely. A bill from that pair has not been reported as introduced.

Nobody has put a specific package on the table that can draw 60 votes. The 17 newcomers take their seats in January, and the 119th Congress's clock on H.R. 9187 runs out first.