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Government benefit programs in trouble
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON -- Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned Tuesday that Social Security and Medicare are facing "enormous challenges" with the threat to Medicare's solvency far more severe.
The trustees, issuing a once-a-year analysis of the government's two biggest benefit programs, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019.
Both those dates were the same as in last year's report. But the trustees warned that financial pressures will begin much sooner when the programs begin paying out more in benefits each year than they collect in payroll taxes. For Medicare, that threshhold is projected to be reached this year and for Social Security it is projected to occur in 2017.
Excerpt
http://www.star-telegram.com/466/story/545891.html
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON -- Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned Tuesday that Social Security and Medicare are facing "enormous challenges" with the threat to Medicare's solvency far more severe.
The trustees, issuing a once-a-year analysis of the government's two biggest benefit programs, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019.
Both those dates were the same as in last year's report. But the trustees warned that financial pressures will begin much sooner when the programs begin paying out more in benefits each year than they collect in payroll taxes. For Medicare, that threshhold is projected to be reached this year and for Social Security it is projected to occur in 2017.
Excerpt
http://www.star-telegram.com/466/story/545891.html