For Immediate Release: Friday, August 13,2010
Contact: Phoebe Silag or Karen Conner, news@epi.org 202-775-8810
The Economic Policy Institute stands by its analysis of Social Security, after being criticized in a recent Washington Post editorial. On its 75th birthday, Social Security is financially sound through 2036. There is no emergency. If no changes are made, beginning around 2037, benefits will be reduced. But modest increases in revenue can close the expected shortfall and preserve full benefits.
A recent editorial in The Washington Post [“Whatever the deniers say, Social Security needs reform soon”], painted the Economic Policy Institute as a Social Security “denialist” with a negative view of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
EPI certainly does not deny that there are long-term imbalances in the federal budget: passage of the Bush tax cuts and the prosecution of two protracted wars created serious problems even before the Great Recession put 15 million people out of work and dramatically reduced federal revenues. The key spending issues in the long term are rising health care costs and a lack of revenue, not Social Security.