Building Wealth Medicare and Social Security's trust fund could be empty in less than 20 years...
Last week, the Social Security Administration (SSA) released its annual report card, showing that Social Security and Medicare are teetering on the brink of insolvency... and getting worse.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Medicare's hospital-insurance trust fund will exhaust its reserves by 2028, two years sooner than estimated last year. Social Security faces trust depletion by 2034... at which point benefits would get cut by 21% across the board if Congress doesn't act.
It's all due to one big reason: People are living longer.
Average life expectancy for folks born in 1900 was only 47 years.
Think about that. I don't know about you... but I'm glad I wasn't around then. I hadn't come close to living a full life at 47.
Not so long ago... in the 1960s... the idea that everyday folks would regularly live deep into their 70s was new and outrageous.
Folks used to retire at 65 and live for five or 10 more years.
Today, the Centers for Disease Control pegs average life expectancy at 79 years... This is one of the greatest achievements in human history...
Personally, I'm happy to live longer... But this longer life is a disaster for Social Security and Medicare. As the Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew, writes in the SSA's annual report...
Both Social Security and Medicare will experience cost growth substantially in excess of GDP growth through the mid-2030s due to rapid population aging caused by the large baby-boom generation entering retirement and lower-birth-rate generations entering employment.
If there aren't significant changes, Lew warns, both Medicare and Social Security could go bust... and much sooner than you expect.
Since 1940... when Social Security started paying benefits... the life expectancy of the average 30-year-old male has increased by nearly a year every four years.
That number is only likely to keep growing...
And with each year of extra life expectancy, comes extra pressures on the solvency of Social Security. Already, the average Social Security benefit is only about $1,300 a month, or $15,500 a year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
What happens if that number gets slashed even further?
If you're like many Americans thinking about retirement, you may not realize that long life can be a curse if you don't understand how long you're likely to live... and how to pay for it.
Now, before I get to the solution to this problem, I want you to understand that you should be able to count on Social Security...
Just like climate change... the insolvency of Social Security is another story our pessimistic minds love to embrace. It goes something like this:
The Social Security system is well on its way to going broke. Payments to beneficiaries have exceeded revenues since 1975... According to recent estimates, reserves set aside to pay disability claims will be exhausted in two years; reserves for old age retirement will be gone in six.
Does any of this sound familiar? That's the abstract from a New York Times article written in May 1977...
Yet here we are, 32 years past doomsday, and the Social Security Administration is still mailing out checks.
Trust me, barring an utter collapse of the U.S. government, Social Security should still be around when you're ready to collect.
But if you're like me... and you like to know that you can rely on yourself for your income needs in retirement... you might be interested in an income strategy to help make more money from your investments.
If you are at all worried about Social Security going bust, I strongly suggest you give this strategy a try.
It's a way to consistently make two to three times more income than you are used to making... without increasing your risk.
Right now, for example, I've put together an income portfolio filled with recommendations that are earning more than two times the S&P 500, three times more than 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds, and eight times more than the average five-year bank CD.
And it's good for more than just income... Through last month, this strategy has made a 15.6% average annual return across all portfolio positions.
That's four times more than the S&P 500 stock index.
That extra income means thousands of dollars per year – the difference between a "budget" retirement and a "luxury" retirement.
Over the past few years, I've shown subscribers dozens of opportunities to improve their retirement years – from high-dividend stocks to a special kind of government debt that pays out money each month.
All to help ensure that you never, ever run out of money in retirement... no matter what happens with Social Security.
If you've ever struggled with key retirement account decisions... or simply want a little help making the right investments... this strategy can be the difference between a retirement of wealth... or a retirement where you're just barely getting by.
If you're interested in how to make thousands of dollars more in retirement, please act soon.
You can get started on a path to generating safe and consistent income in retirement with my trading service, Retirement Trader. Right now, you can try Retirement Trader for 30 days, risk free. But this offer only lasts until MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. Click here to get started.