Welcome to Cato Daily Podcast

this Wednesday, April 25th. I'm your host Anastasia Glova. The Social

Security Trustees released their annual report yesterday, unveiled to much cheer and optimism in the media.

By looking at the program's finances, the Trustees projected an extra year of viability for the Social Security Trust Fund.

That means the crash won't happen until 2041.

That may be so, but good news, it is not.

Not according to Cato's Director of Health and Welfare Studies, Michael Tanner, the guest for today's podcast.

This annual report bodes well for the future of the Social Security Trust Fund, buying it an extra year, you don't seem thrilled.

The important date in the Trustees Report is 2017.

That's the date at which Social Security will begin to run a deficit.

That is, it will begin to spend more money on benefits than is taking in through taxes.

Most of the media has focused on the date of 2041, the date at which the trust fund is exhausted, and that's

a year later than last year's report.

But that's essentially a meaningless date.

There is no trust fund per se. The trust fund is really simply a collection

of IOUs, an accounting mechanism that tells us how much money the government owes the Social

Security System. The real importance is 27. the government owes the social security system.

The real importance is 2017 just 10 years from now when that deficit starts.

So the extra year is just the product of accounting magic?

You have to understand the nature of the Social Security

trust fund. Today Social Security brings in more money than it spends on benefits, but that

money can't be stuffed in a cigar box and buried out behind the Treasury

...