“Worse than doing nothing, the cumulative effect of the President’s budget proposals would actually hurt Social Security’s funding stream by billions of dollars.”

As prepared for delivery.

“Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to today’s hearing. 

“Last month, the Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the financial status of the Social Security programs. And with it came more unwelcome news for American seniors and workers.

“Like last year, both the Trustees and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) project that Social Security’s retirement and survivor’s program will be unable to pay full benefits in less than a decade. Both also still project that Trust Fund exhaustions could lead to immediate benefit cuts of 21 to 25 percent for the tens of millions of seniors and their families who rely on the program. 

“The difference is that it’s now a year later and we are that much closer to insolvency. As we will hear today, the longer we wait, the harder this is going to be to solve. 

“It is clear that Social Security’s cost growth is unsustainable. Program costs averaged 4.5 percent of GDP from 1994-2023, and are projected to grow rapidly to nearly 6 percent by 2034 as Baby Boomers continue to reach retirement age. Simply put, more people are, and will be, collecting Social Security, for longer periods of time. A trend that is projected to continue for decades.  

“To add insult to injury, President Biden’s recent budget does nothing to address the pending exhaustion of the retirement Trust Fund. Worse than doing nothing, the cumulative effect of the President’s budget proposals would actually hurt Social Security’s funding stream by billions of dollars.

“On top of that, his Social Security Administration has done everything it can to push out rules and other policy changes that will result in tens of billions of new and unpaid-for program costs that will only accelerate Trust Fund exhaustion.

“Social Security is vitally important to virtually every single American so it’s important that we don’t downplay how bad the situation is.

“To tell the American people that the most recent Trustees Report is good news because the projections push back insolvency by a few months is misleading and misses the point. These programs are in dire trouble and sugar coating the problem instead of seeking bipartisan solutions only puts seniors and workers at greater risk.

“The American people rightfully expect and deserve that we find a way to work together to save and strengthen this program. That starts here with an honest assessment of the programs’ finances and a sincere discussion of the size of the problem we need to solve.

“I invite my colleagues to join me in that discussion today.”