Krugman gives the short course on Social Security

But now casual talk about the need to “fix” Social Security is creeping back into the discourse. Folks, Social Security is in pretty good shape; it’s not clear that there even is a long-run shortfall, and if there is it’s a much less pressing problem than many others. The only reason we hear so much about Social Security is that there are powerful political forces that want to kill it, for ideological reasons.

Repeat for the zillionth time: there is no crisis in Social Security. What we do know is merely that, based on formulaic projections by the Social Security Administration – projections that have consistently been too pessimistic (by a substantial margin) over the past 15 years – we might have a funding problem that begins in about 34 years from now. But over that 15 year period before now, with current Social Security withholding revenues coming in at higher levels than expected, and a "Baby Boom Surplus" being built up faster and bigger than expected, we are still not going to have to start tapping that surplus for another 10 years or so – which is about what they’ve been saying ("10 years from now") for the last 15 years. The day sometime around 2040 when the Surplus is supposed to run out keeps getting moved out, too. The difference between the start date and the exhaustion date has gotten wider, too. That’s not a crisis. It’s something to watch – for the experts to watch – because the formula with all kinds of projections about the future says we might have a problem. And we don't want to mess with Social Security. But not a crisis.