No Doom And Gloom for Social Security

Kevin Drum summarizes the latest projections regarding Social Security:

Here's the deal in three easy steps:

1. Currently, federal government spending amounts to about 20% of GDP.

2. Every year, the Social Security trustees make three projections for the future growth of benefits. The middle projection indicates that everything is fine until about 2042, after which we will need to increase taxes by — wait for it — a whopping 2% of GDP.

3. However, it turns out that the middle projection hasn't turned out to be the most accurate in the past. The "low cost" projection has. And that projection tells us that Social Security is solvent for at least the next 80 years.
   

So: even if you're the worrying sort, the pessimistic scenario suggests that we'll need to do no more than gradually increase taxes by about one-tenth starting in a couple of decades. Or perhaps by a twentieth along with a few modest benefit reductions. Not exactly the end of the world. But the most likely scenario is that Social Security is in fine shape and we don't have to do anything at all.