A few years ago we talked a lot about Social Security running out of money and not being able to pay full benefits to beneficiaries in just a couple of decades. By no means is Social Security out of the woods, but the disability trust fund is doing much better than it was four years ago.
Back in 2015 when the disability trust fund reserve reached its lowest level in many years Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed, a bill that temporarily transferred taxes from the Social Security retirement trust fund to the disability trust fund from 2016-2018, which had a huge impact on the health of the disability trust fund.
Back in December of 2015 the disability trust fund reserve was at $32.3 billion. Just five years earlier in December 2010 the reserve was at near $180 billion, according to Social Security’s projections. The reserves continued to decrease each month and year until it its lowest amount in December 2015. The transferring of funds between the two trust funds strengthened the disability trust fund back to $97.1 billion, but last year was the end of the bill that diverted money from the retirement fund to the disability fund.
You might expect the disability trust fund to be less than it was at the end of 2018 because it is not getting funds diverted from the retirement fund, but that is not the case. Economic growth has actually increased the disability trust fund to $99.1 billion as of July 2019.
This is not to say that long-term goals are not needed to secure Social Security’s future, but things are looking better than they have in a long while even without the funds from the retirement trust fund. Each year Social Security releases a report on the health of the trust funds, and 2019 will look much better than many people thought.
