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Social Security is projected to become insolvent in 2032 and trigger automatic benefit cuts according to the most recent estimates, and Americans are split on the best way to reform the entitlement program to secure its future, a new poll finds.
The Ronald Reagan Institute’s Reagan National Economic Survey, reviewed exclusively by FOX Business, asked voters how they think Social Security’s shortfall should be closed to prevent benefits from being cut when the program is no longer to pay out full benefits in 2032.
“Americans fall into two different camps: those who want to do something about it and those who want to push this off to the next generation,” Dan Rothschild, director of the Center for Civics, Education, and Opportunity at the Reagan Institute, told FOX Business in an interview.
The survey asked registered voters about three specific policy options that could improve Social Security’s fiscal outlook – raising taxes on workers, reducing benefits and raising the retirement age – each of which encountered opposition.
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Payroll taxes on current workers and their employers are the primary way funding is provided for Social Security, but the prospect of higher taxes was opposed by 80% of voters, with similar findings across party-lines and age groups.
Reducing Social Security benefits faced even stronger opposition among registered voters, with 90% opposed, according to the poll. Notably, the youngest age cohort had the most support for benefit cuts, with 22% of 18-to-29-year-olds in favor, compared to 78% in opposition.
Borrowing money and adding to the national debt also faced broad opposition, with just 24% of voters in favor and 76% opposed.
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Raising the retirement age was viewed as a slightly more favorable reform option, with 26% support to 74% opposition among registered voters.
There was a modest partisan split, with 31% of Republicans and 25% of Independents in favor, compared with 21% of Democrats. Additionally, the youngest and oldest age cohorts were the most supportive of a higher retirement age, with 30% of 18-29-year-olds and 33% of those 65 and up in favor.
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When asked to choose between increasing taxes by $1,500 per year; cutting benefits to existing retirees by $5,000 per year; and cutting benefits to retirees with a net worth over $1 million, including the value of their homes, by $15,000 per year.
Respondents were in favor of the latter option with 71% in favor. That’s compared with 20% in favor of the tax increase and 9% supporting the benefit cuts.
AMERICANS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT INNOVATION ADDRESSING MAJOR CHALLENGES, SURVEY FINDS
Medicare is also facing insolvency in 2033, and the poll found 43% of voters favored raising taxes on workers by about $2,400 per year, compared with 33% who favored hiking premiums on Medicare beneficiaries by $1,000 per year and the 24% who supported reducing the services covered by Medicare to lower costs.
“A really significant number of people did not want to make any changes at all. That was driven by a large degree by the perception that Social Security and Medicare have had a effectively mythical trust fund raided, that the money has been spent somewhere else, that this is the result of waste, fraud and abuse – not that it’s a problem inherent to a pay-go-system like this,” Rothschild said.
“I see a massive gap between the way that Americans understand the way that entitlement programs are funded and the way that entitlement programs are actually funded,” he added.
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