As of November 2023, over 52.6 million people receive monthly retirement-related benefits from Social Security, and the program pays out nearly $95 billion in retirement benefits each month. That's a lot of people depending on a lot of money from a program that looks like it's on very shaky financial grounds.

Don't just take my word for it, though. Social Security's own trustees warn that the trust fund that supports the program's retirement benefits will deplete by 2033, and taken as a whole, the system's total trust funds will empty by 2034. Depending on whether you look at the trust funds as separate or combined, that would result in a reduction of somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% to 23% of benefits.

No matter how you slice it, the reality is that in 2024, Social Security will be just a decade away from disaster. The good news on that front is that history suggests that Congress will eventually come together and patch the program. Unfortunately, that same history indicates that you will likely be paying for those patches through some combination of tax increases or benefit cuts .

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Source Fool.com