The Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the financial status of the Social Security Trust Funds on June 18, 2025. The combined reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASI and DI) Trust Funds are projected to have enough dedicated revenue to pay all scheduled benefits and associated administrative costs until 2034, one year earlier than projected last year, with 81% of benefits payable at that time. 

The two trust funds could not actually be combined unless there was a change in the law, but the combined projection of the two funds is frequently used to indicate the overall status of the Social Security program. Congress must take steps before them to raise taxes, reduce benefits or both to stabilize the long-term financing of the nation’s crucial retirement program and to continue paying full benefits. The Social Security program has never missed a benefit check in its 90-year history.

The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund, which funds Social Security retirement, spousal, and survivor benefits, will be able to pay 100% of total scheduled benefits until 2033, unchanged from last year’s report. At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 77% of total scheduled benefits.

The Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund is projected to pay 100% of total scheduled benefits through at least 2099, the last year of this report’s projection period. If the OASI and DI trust fund projections were combined, the resulting project fund (OASDI) would be able to pay 100% of total scheduled benefits until 2034. 

“To ensure we serve the public and deliver high-quality service to the 185 million people who work and pay payroll taxes for Social Security and the 70 million beneficiaries who will receive benefits during 2025, the financial status of the trust funds remains a top priority for the Trump Administration,” Social Security Commission Frank Bisignano said in a statement accompanying the report.

Total program income amounted to $1.42 trillion in 20204, including $1.29 trillion from net payroll tax contributions, $55 billion from taxation of benefits and $69 trillion in interest on the combined trusts funds which earned interest at an effective annual rate of 2.5% in 2024.

During his presidential campaign, President Trump proposed eliminating income taxes on Social Security benefits, which was a popular idea with many senior but would have accelerated the exhaustion of the trust fund by several months. The tax-free Social Security benefits proposal was not included in “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and is now pending before the U.S. Senate.

Social Security’s projected actuarial deficit over the 75-year long-range period is 3.82% of taxable payroll—higher than the 3.5% projected in last year’s report. One possible solution to close the deficit is to raise the current Social Security payroll tax of 12.4% that is paid equally by employers and employees by 3.82% to 16.22%. In 2025, the Social Security FICA payroll tax of 12.4% is applied to the first $176,100 of gross wages. An additional 2.9% of payroll taxes, split evenly between employers and employees, applies to all wages, even those above the taxable maximum, to fund Medicare.