As Republicans and Democrats gather this week and next at their respective national conventions, hanging over their heads is a different kind of hurricane. The largest federal program in the United States — Social Security — could become a Category 5 catastrophe unless changes are made.

But what changes?

And who pays?

As millions of baby boomers reach retirement, the burden on Social Security grows. About 56 million people get benefits today, and that is projected to grow to 91 million in 2035. That has changed the calculus of the program. In 1950, in the early years of the baby boom, there were 16 workers for each retiree, spreading the tax burden out. It’s now 3.3 workers per retiree, and that is expected to drop to two workers per retiree by 2025.

For nearly three decades, workers generated Social Security surpluses, providing more in tax revenue than the system paid in benefits to retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children. Social Security’s surplus, now valued at $2.7 trillion, is projected to be gone in 2033. At that point, Social Security would collect enough tax revenue each year to pay only about 75 percent of benefits. Once Social Security’s surplus is gone, the program is projected to pay out $134 trillion more in benefits than it will collect in taxes over the next 75 years, according to data from the Social Security Administration.

Options for extending the life of Social Security include imposing the payroll tax on higher incomes, raising taxes on all workers, cutting benefits to retirees, raising the retirement age, or some combination of those elements.

Paul Zagorski, a political science professor at Pittsburg (Kan.) State University, said that for both political parties, the real conventions aren’t the ones on television this week and next, but take place when political leaders meet with their big donors — off-camera and unreported.

“Everything else is just infomercial,” he said.



All they have

Cutting benefits is the least palatable option.

That was the consensus among a half-dozen seniors who gathered for beef and noodles during the lunch hour at the Homer Cole Senior Citizens Center in Pittsburg.

“For so many people, including me, it’s the only thing they’ve got coming in,” said Homer Cole, 87, a former Pittsburg mayor and the namesake of the center, referring to Social Security.

Medicare costs keep going up, as do other expenses.

“I take 10 pills in the morning and five in the afternoon,” Cole said. “I get them from the Veterans (Affairs Department) or I don’t know what I would do.”

Cole favors applying Social Security taxes to those whose incomes exceed $110,100. Currently, the tax is applied to the first $110,100 of each worker’s wages, a level that increases each year with inflation.

Raising the cap on wages that are taxed for Social Security seems to be the most obvious solution because it would do the most to close the funding gap, said Zagorski, the PSU professor.

“Oddly, it’s what’s discussed the least,” he said. “It’s the obvious solution, but it would take some political courage.”

Said Cole: “They’re going to have to do something.”

Cole’s solution is the one favored by most Americans, according to the findings of a new Associated Press-GfK poll on public attitudes toward Social Security.

When given a choice on how to fix Social Security, 53 percent of adults said they would rather raise taxes than cut benefits for future generations, according to the poll. Just 36 percent said they would cut benefits instead.

The results were similar when people were asked whether they would rather raise the retirement age or cut monthly payments for future generations; 53 percent said they would raise the retirement age, while 35 percent said they would cut monthly payments.

Zagorski said he’s not concerned about changes to Social Security affecting baby boomers, because they represent a huge population that will vote its interests.

“Until we start dying off, we’re protected,” he said.

David Buckley, 66, of Pittsburg, said he would not object to changes that would raise the retirement age or apply Social Security taxes to those earning more than $110,100.

He said his wife still works, “but we can’t afford insurance for her.”

Currently, workers qualify for full retirement benefits at age 66; that rises to 67 for people born in 1960 or later.



Romney vs. Obama

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has said he favors gradually increasing the retirement age, but he opposes tax increases to shore up Social Security. For future generations, Romney would slow the growth of benefits “for those with higher incomes.”

Democratic President Barack Obama hasn’t laid out a detailed plan for addressing Social Security. But during the 2008 campaign, he called for applying the Social Security payroll tax to wages above $250,000.

Obama says any changes to Social Security should be done “without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.”

Romney’s running mate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, has been a leading proponent in Congress of allowing workers to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal investment accounts. Romney has not fully embraced the idea, but Democrats are using it to accuse Republicans of trying to privatize Social Security.

If anything, Social Security benefits should be increased because other costs, including Medicare, keep going up, said Jeanne McLaughlin, of Pittsburg.

She said the nation could solve its fiscal problems “if we would stop sending money to foreign countries and buy only USA products.”

Thomas Hubbard, 74, of Frontenac, Kan., gets Social Security and “a little pension,” but the former becomes more important as pensions are at risk.

He said he worked at a Pittsburg business that declared bankruptcy, and most of the $80,000 he had invested in company stock was lost. In the end, he got 10 cents on the dollar, or $8,000.

“They froze them, and we couldn’t sell until it was too late,” Hubbard said. “I don’t want Social Security messed with. And I don’t want Medicare messed with .”

He illustrates the other plight of retirement: underfunded private and public pensions. A recent report looking at 500 Standard and Poor’s companies found that their pension plans were underfunded by nearly $360 billion. Those companies had obligations of $1.68 trillion but pension assets of $1.32 trillion. Of the 338 companies with traditional (defined benefit) pension plans, only 18 were fully funded. Public pension obligations also are threatening the solvency of state and local governments.

There must be a floor on benefits, Zagorski said, or the nation could revert to the times when there was widespread poverty among the elderly. He said that’s the case currently, to some extent, among seniors whose incomes used to include retirement pensions that are no longer paid by most companies.

Other solutions, such as privatizing Social Security, also are not attractive, because they would take revenue out of a system that is “essentially an intergenerational transfer,” Zagorski said.



Poll details

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS-GKF POLL on opinions about Social Security involved land line and cellphone interviews with 1,006 adults nationwide. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.