Social Security alert: Senior citizens group issues warning as $500 a month benefits cuts loom

One of the country’s largest senior citizen groups is speaking out against a new plan to save Social Security.

AARP said the Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Maintaining Income Security for Everyone, or PROMISE, bill introduced by Sens. Duck Durbin, D-Ill., Bill Cassidy, R-La., and six other lawmakers would remove public input from its important role in reforming Social Security.

“We agree with you that Congress needs to act to address Social Security’s financial challenges and to strengthen Social Security for generations to come,” Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s chief advocacy and engagement officer, wrote in a July 21 letter to Durbin and Cassidy. “But how Congress acts matters.”

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“We strongly object to fast-tracking Social Security changes through Congress, as your bill would do,” she added. “Strengthening Social Security should happen through regular order, in full public view, with openness and transparency — rather than through a process that limits the type of amendments and sets arbitrary procedural deadlines to short-circuit the debate.”

The letter comes as Social Security looks at massive cuts of 22% a month in benefits due to dwindling reserves.

The PROMISE Act doesn’t offer specific solutions to address the shortfall. Instead, it directs the seven-member Social Security Advisory Board to draft a bill that would keep the program’s trust funds solvent for at least the next 50 years. That bill would be created by an advisory board and due by Sept. 17 or the first day after that in which the House and Senate are in session.

PROMISE also limits opportunities for lawmakers to add amendments and the type that would be allowed, AARP said. Consideration of the bill, including debate and voting on amendments, would be capped at 100 hours.

All of that could end up harming Social Security reform, AARP said in its letter.

“If regular order is the gold standard for routine legislative matters, it certainly should be the standard for something as important as Social Security,” LeaMond wrote.

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The latest projections from the Social Security Board of Trustees show that the reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund are set to run out in the fourth quarter of 2032. After that point, Social Security would only be able to pay 78% of promised benefits, slashing the average benefit by about $500 a month.

The bulk of Social Security is funded through dedicated payroll taxes and taxes on benefits. Any shortfall, however, is covered by the trust funds. For the past 16 years, Social Security payments have exceeded its cash income, forcing it to dip into fund reserves to pay benefits. By law, it can’t pay out more in benefits than it receives in revenue, so once the trust fund is gone, cuts will follow.