Social Security’s Disability Insurance trust fund will run out of reserves next year without congressional action, trustees said, urging U.S. lawmakers to address the nation’s unsustainable entitlement programs.
Beyond 2016, continuing income will be sufficient to pay 81 percent of scheduled disability payments, trustees said in an annual report released in Washington on Wednesday. One solution mentioned is Congress shifting funds from the larger Social Security retirement fund.
Combined, the Social Security retirement and disability fund reserves are projected to be exhausted in 2034, a year later than the trustees predicted last year. The Medicare health system will exhaust its main financial trust fund in 2030, the same year as predicted in the 2014 report.
“Lawmakers should take action sooner rather than later,” the trustees, led by Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, said in a statement released with the report. “Social Security as a whole as well as Medicare cannot sustain projected long-run program costs under currently scheduled financing.”