The reserves of the OASDI program (which are held in special issue US Treasuries) declined from $2,721 billion at the beginning of 2025 to $2,561 billion at the end of 2025.
OASDI= Old Age Survivor Disability Insurance
The combined OASDI fund is projected to become depleted in the third quarter of 2034, the same quarter as in last year’s report. Upon reserve depletion in 2034, projected income is sufficient to pay 83 percent of scheduled benefits. This percentage declines gradually to 65 percent by 2100.
In 2025 the Trust received $68.9 billion in interest on the Treasury bonds it holds and $57.8 billion from the taxation of SS benefits.
The level of the combined trust fund reserves is projected to decline in 2026, as it has since 2021, and to continue to decline throughout the remainder of the short-range period.
After reserves for the OASDI program are depleted, continuing income is sufficient to pay 83 percent of OASDI scheduled benefits for the rest of 2034
Before 2010, there were a few earlier years (starting in 1937) when benefits paid out exceeded income, requiring the trust fund to spend assets to make up the difference, but the sustained, program-wide pattern of redeeming bonds began in 2010.
2021 was the first year since 1982 that Social Security had to redeem trust fund assets on a net basis to help pay scheduled benefits. About $56 billion of trust fund securities were redeemed that year.
Since then, the trust funds have continued redeeming securities each year (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and beyond) as annual expenses exceed total income.
Keep in mind, the combined retirement and disability trust only becomes depleted (estimate 2034) AFTER all the Treasury Bonds held by trust have been redeemed and paid out in benefits.
Of course at that point there will no longer be interest income to the trust.
The rhetoric that Congress stole the SS trust money and did not return it is false.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Glad to see you adjusted your posts on this to drop “misuse” and focus on “stolen”.
As I posted months ago:
“… We can disagree whether investing all of the assets in Treasuries was misuse. I think it was, is, and will continue to be.
“Misused” is the past tense and participle of the verb “misuse,” meaning to use something incorrectly, carelessly, or for an improper purpose.
I have two reasons for my position:
First, most of the liabilities of the Social Security system, in 1936 and today, are decades off into the future – you mention the 75 year period, and I agree. So, since 1983, we were building reserves slowly, in part because of our investment rate of return, investing in short term Treasuries monies to be spent in years after 2010. Anywhere else in America, investing in short term guaranteed securities for a liability that was 25 – 50 years off into the future would have been a violation of fiduciary duties (certainly in ERISA, had this been an insured retirement plan).
Second, investing the money in short term Treasuries allows Congress to spend those monies on every vote buying scheme it wants yesterday and today – most recently, the idiot Biden’s Social Security Fairness Act. We haven’t had a balanced budget in 25 years. Who, how were those deficits and our $39 Trillion in national debt funded? In part, the securities where our FICA taxes were invested.
Yes, that is how it was set up. It was set up, and since 1940, has been misused to buy votes and fund unrelated government spending.
As Mark Twain once said: There is no distinctly native American criminal class—except Congress.
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Sorry, Jack I disagree. I see no different consistently secure way to invest that reserve. Besides as you know, if it hadn’t been those purchases of bonds others treasuries would have been issued to fund deficit spending given Americans have an aversion to paying for what they want and expect – many believing stuff can actually be “free.”
I have a retired friend in England who now pays nothing for healthcare, not even a co-pay or premium. He insists his health is all free despite all he paid in taxes while working. That’s the healthcare many Americans want- except the tax part.
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Maybe other bonds would have been issued, and maybe not. And, if they were, those would be part of the deficit spending, subject to the debt limit – perhaps prompting actions similar to those we saw in 2011 and 2012 regarding deficit spending, and maybe there would have been more resistance to abuses of those limits.
But, at a minimum, assuming Social Security trust assets would have benefitted from higher rates of return from 1983 – 2010, we would not be staring at Social Security trust exhaustion in 6 years.
Major difference in America (versus England) is much of entitlement funding comes from general revenues – where in England, we are talking about VAT and other sources (more comparable to sales taxes).
Today, 40+% of American households consistently avoid income taxes and have done so for much of the past 40 or so years. From the 1960’s through the 1980’s, that percentage was only 20% of households. Starting with Reagan and continuing through Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, Trump 1, Biden and Trump 2, the percentage grew to 40%, has spiked to over 50% a couple times, and has consistently been at that level.
During recessions or times of extensive tax relief, this non-paying share has temporarily spiked to peaks of over 50%. The “47 Percent” Era: The most widely cited period occurred after the 2008 recession and the implementation of recovery acts, when the non-paying rate hovered around 46% to 47%. And, in 2021, a record 57% of U.S. households paid no federal income tax, largely driven by temporary expanded tax credits (like the Child Tax Credit) and COVID-19 stimulus.
But, that is also significantly different when compared to the last 25 or so years of consistent deficit spending, and truly different when compared to the last 15 or so years
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