Trump's payroll tax plan would bust the Social Security Trust Fund by 2023, chief actuary estimates

Social Security cards.
(Image credit: IStock)

An estimate from the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration certainly won't allay fears about President Trump's promise to terminate payroll taxes should he get re-elected.

In a letter addressed to Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Stephen Goss said that if, hypothetically, payroll taxes were eliminated after Jan. 1, 2021, and there was no alternative source of revenue in place, Social Security's Disability Insurance Trust Fund "would become permanently depleted in about the middle of the calendar year 2021, with no ability to pay DI benefits thereafter." The reserves for the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, meanwhile, would last until just 2023.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.