Is America’s Social Security system bankrupt? Well, not exactly.
It is, however, significantly underfunded. No shocker there. What’s perhaps more interesting is that we have the tools to fix the problem right now, says retirement guru Bradley Belt. He knows a thing or two. Belt used to run the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) where he was responsible for leading the federal pension insurance program and overseeing a $60 billion investment portfolio.
The bigger challenge? Getting flimsy politicians on board. (No shocker there either.) As Belt says in the HedgeyeTV Real Conversations interview above:
“Social Security is actually pretty easy to solve from a math standpoint. There are a few levers that you can adjust that actually most reasonable, rational people when you sit them down in a room would say, ‘Yes that’s a reasonable rational trade off.’ And you can actually solve for the fiscal deficit over the long term, but it’s more about the political willingness to change things.”
Social Security: Here are the numbers
The Social Security Board of Trustees estimates that the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2034. After that, under current law, just three quarters of scheduled benefits are projected to be payable to each retiring recipient from 2035 onward. Projecting that out 75 years, if Congress does nothing the expected benefits deficit would reach a staggering $11.4 trillion.
These are obviously massive numbers, which explains why the issue is such a political hot potato. But Belt suggests some fixes in the video above. While Belt is now vice chairman of alternative asset manager Orchard Global Asset Management, he has spent much of his career working on retirement issues in the public sector.
Belt served as executive director of the PBGC under President George W. Bush, which was set up by the U.S. government to fill the gap of employer pension plans that cannot afford to fulfill promised benefits. It’s an even bigger problems these days, Belt says. Private pension shortfalls will be exacerbated over the coming years by global trends, related to low productivity and population growth, he says. This suggests “lower returns over the medium to longer term.”
On the public pension side, Belt is equally qualified to suggest fixes to Social Security. After serving on a Congressional commission called the National Commission on Retirement Policy during the Clinton Presidency, Belt and others put forth proposals like raising the retirement age – and indexing for gains in longevity.
Belt’s discussion with Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough above is thought-provoking. And should help you get up to speed on an issue affects all Americans.
