Americans of all political stripes want Social Security benefits protected — over 80% also worry about long-term care. So why won’t lawmakers act now?

Social Security is in crisis

Social Security is facing a funding crisis as older Americans continue to retire and claim benefits. While younger workers are expected to replace them to some degree, declining birth rates have created a scenario where the number of retirees far exceeds the number of new workers.

This is a problem because Social Security gets most of its funding from payroll taxes. A shrinking workforce means less revenue. Combine that with an uptick in benefit claims from fresh retirees, and the program is heading for financial trouble in the years ahead.

Social Security does have trust funds it can tap into to keep benefits flowing for a while, but once those trust funds are emptied, benefit cuts could occur.

The latest Social Security Trustees Report estimates that the program's combined trust funds will run dry by 2035. At that point, seniors could see their monthly benefits reduced by about 25%.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers agree on supporting Social Security, but they have different strategies for preventing these cuts.

Democrats want to solve the funding shortfall by raising taxes on the wealthy. Republicans, on the other hand, are looking at raising the full retirement age to keep more money in the program. Right now, the full retirement age is 67 for workers born in 1960 or later.

Both approaches have their pros and cons. Raising taxes on the wealthy could lead to higher maximum Social Security benefits since payouts are tied to earnings, which might offset some of the extra revenue. On the flip side, raising the retirement age could force people to delay retirement and might lead to more cases of age discrimination in the workforce.

As incidents of ageism in the workplace increase, older workers run the risk of being forced out of jobs earlier than planned. In those cases, having to wait longer to collect full benefits is far from ideal.

Either way, lawmakers will have to put their heads together and prioritize Social Security soon. After all, 2035 isn’t that far off and slashing benefits could push millions of seniors into or near poverty.

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Long-term care has become expensive

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 70% of adults aged 65 or older will need some type of long-term care in their lifetime. But for many seniors, those costs are unaffordable.

Here’s what long-term care costs looked like on average in 2023, according to Genworth:

• $75,504 for a full-time home health aide
• $64,200 for assisted living
• $104,025 for a shared nursing home room
• $116,800 for a private nursing home room

Unfortunately, there’s little help available to pay for long-term care. Medicare won’t cover it, and while Medicaid will, many seniors find themselves in a bind: they have just enough income to cover their bills, but not a low enough income to be eligible for Medicaid.

Even if Medicaid’s eligibility rules were loosened for long-term care, it still puts a burden on states to come up with the funding to pay for it. That’s a whole other can of worms.

Ideally, lawmakers will put their heads together to arrive at a plan for easing the burden of long-term care. That could include rolling out subsidies for qualifying families or finding ways to expand Medicare coverage to pick up the tab for certain services. But given that Medicare, like Social Security, is facing its own financial crisis, that’s not something to bank on anytime soon.