US Adults Lack Confidence in Social Security Fix

Less than 10 years before Social Security’s main trust fund is expected to run short of money to pay full benefits to retirees and other beneficiaries, U.S. adults older than 45 are, understandably, very concerned.

According to findings from financial services firm PlanGap’s sixth annual Social Security Confidence Survey, 69% of respondents said they were not confident the government would solve Social Security’s funding challenge without reducing benefits.

According to the latest Social Security Administration Board of Trustees’ report, published on June 9, the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is expected to deplete in 2032, one year earlier than the 2025 report’s projection and two years earlier than the projection made in 2024.

Last year’s PlanGap survey had a similar level of respondent confidence, with 68% of respondents aged 50 and older reporting low confidence in the government’s ability to solve the funding shortfall without reductions.

“The most important comparison is the consistency. Year after year, PlanGap’s survey has shown that Americans approaching retirement are concerned,” wrote David Duley, PlanGap’s founder and CEO, in an email to PLANADVISER. “That says this issue is still not being addressed at the level participants need. The projected insolvency date keeps getting closer, the concern remains high and participants are still left wondering whether a central piece of their retirement income plan is exposed to a political outcome they cannot control.”

Advisers’ Best Approach

According to Duley, to properly address plan participants’ concerns about Social Security, plan advisers will need to “understand that many participants do not view Social Security the same way the retirement industry often talks about it,” he wrote.

As advisers plan conversations related to Social Security, Duley recommends not treating it as guaranteed income.

“When participants read the Trustees Report and see projections showing a potential future benefit shortfall, they are not thinking about Social Security as a certainty,” Duley wrote. “They are thinking, ‘What happens to my retirement if Washington does not fix this?’”

PlanGap’s survey also found that 83% of U.S. adults age 45 and older said Social Security will play a major or moderate role in their retirement plan’s success, and 60% expected Social Security to fund at least half of their personal retirement income.

“Advisers should be the ones helping participants pressure-test their retirement income plans against the possibility that Social Security does not pay exactly what they expect, when they expect it,” Duley wrote.

Looking for a Solution

Most PlanGap survey respondents (68%) expected some form of benefit reduction as the primary way the government will address the Social Security funding shortfall.

That 68% of respondents consisted of 33% of all respondents who expected the eligibility age to rise, 20% who expected benefit reductions for higher-wage-earners and 15% who expected benefit reductions for all recipients.

While Social Security is a notoriously thorny political issue, some congressional members have already been vocal in their search for a solution.

Senator Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, whose term officially ends on January 3, 2027, outlined in a July 2025 Washington Post column co-written with Senator Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, a “big idea” to save Social Security. Cassidy later presented the plan at a March budget hearing, explaining how he would add a diversified investment fund to the Social Security fund lineup.

“This new fund would be separate from the Social Security Trust Fund,” Cassidy said in the hearing. “It would be pre-funded with $1.5 trillion and invested in the way your 401(k) is invested.”

Over 65 to 70 years, the $1.5 trillion invested in the separate fund would be invested in the stock market and would be expected to grow 60% to 65% of Social Security’s unfunded accrued liability, according to Cassidy.

In another article published by the New York Times on Tuesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Senator Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, explained how raising the Social Security payroll tax cap could save Social Security.

The 2026 payroll tax cap is currently $184,500. As workers and their employers each pay 6.2% of their wages on that amount—12.4% for self-employed individuals—the maximum withholding for Social Security is $22,878.

“Not a penny more, even if an individual’s salary far exceeds $184,500,” Warren and Moreno wrote in the New York Times. “Since the vast majority of Americans make less than that, most people are paying Social Security taxes on 100 percent of their earnings, while the highest earners are paying on only part of theirs.”

By the senators’ estimate, raising the tax cap could bring an additional $3 trillion into Social Security within the next decade.

Another solution, presented by the University of Pennsylvania in its Penn Wharton Budget Model, pushes back on the Social Security Trustees Report’s timeline. According to the analysis, if the OASI Trust was combined with the disability insurance trust fund, the projected depletion date could be pushed to February 2035 from the current projected depletion date in 2032.

“Even a partial reduction in benefits could materially affect the monthly income many households expect to rely on,” Duley wrote. “That should be a call to action—not for Washington, but for advisers. Participants need someone to help them understand the risk, quantify the potential impact and build a plan that does not simply assume Congress will solve the problem in time. This is the peace of mind participants are asking for.”

PlanGap surveyed 1,082 U.S. adults aged 45 and older following the publication of the “2026 Social Security Board of Trustees Report.”