AARP study Social Security payroll tax gap, Digi Mart USA News: A new AARP study examines the risk of Social Security cuts and estimates that the program could have paid full benefits until 2059 if the share of the economy subject to its payroll tax had held steady. The research, published November 10, measures how changing income patterns have reduced the program’s revenue base.
The official financing deadlines are earlier. Federal trustees project that retirement and survivors reserves will be exhausted in late 2032, while a hypothetical combination of the retirement and disability funds would last until 2034. These estimates describe future financing under current law and do not announce a new reduction in current payments.
According to the AARP Public Policy Institute’s summary, earnings subject to the payroll tax equaled 34% of gross domestic product in 2025, down from roughly 41% in the early 1980s. Richard W.
Johnson, the institute’s vice president of financial security, authored the research using Social Security Administration and Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
