Pa. residents stand to lose an average of $520 a month in Social Security benefits in six years unless Congress acts

For 30 years, Nettie King, 92, has relied on Social Security to survive.

She and her former employers at the Oak Lane Diner near her home paid into Social Security through payroll taxes for years.

While the storied institution closed in 2015, the Social Security benefit checks that King’s work generated have kept coming. “It’s been comfortable,” explained King, who said she was the diner’s first server of color in 1963.

But now there’s a problem.

King is among 68 million Americans facing possible reductions of 22% to their benefits by 2032 unless Congress acts, according to a new report by Social Security Administration (SSA) trustees released last month.

Pennsylvania residents could lose an average of $520 each from their monthly Social Security checks, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan think tank. That would affect an estimated 255,000 Philadelphians receiving Social Security benefits, according to Olivia Mitchell, director of the Boettner Center on Pensions and Retirement Research at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

“Losing that much would be a disaster,” King said. “I pray the money doesn’t stop.”

It won’t if Congress overcomes its partisan divide and creates a workable solution to make Social Security solvent, say advocates for the elderly — including AARP, whose senior vice president Bill Sweeney warned in a recent press call that “the longer they wait, the harder it gets.”

Speaking for the Trump administration, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement, “We are working to preserve Social Security ... and recognize that more work remains to secure benefits for future beneficiaries.”

Analysts have long predicted the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund from which most retired Social Security claimants draw benefits could dissipate, said Temple University labor economist Samuel Solomon. But that was always regarded as a “someday” event.

“Someday” may now be just six years away. “That’s a big deal,” Solomon said.

The SSA wouldn’t stop paying benefits altogether, Mitchell said. Although the report predicts the fund’s reserves could be tapped out by 2032, “continuing payroll tax revenue [from people currently working] would cover about 78% of scheduled retirement benefits,” she added.

At nearly $1.6 trillion annually, Social Security represents more than 20% of the U.S. budget and is the nation’s largest single expense, Solomon said.

Various factors have combined recently to accelerate the fund’s potential depletion, according to the report submitted by SSA trustees, who include Bessent, as well as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

First, the fertility rate this year is going down faster than predicted: 1.75 children per woman vs. 1.9.

Also, immigration is lower than estimated. That trend will continue as the government maintains restrictive immigration policies, experts say. It represents a potentially immense loss of revenue, according to Wharton research, which shows that “unauthorized immigrants” paid $24 billion in Social Security payroll taxes in 2024, despite being ineligible to collect any benefits.

Both the slowed fertility and diminished immigration rates have lowered the anticipated number of workers and the payroll taxes they’d have contributed to Social Security, said Kathleen Romig, Social Security expert with the Center on Budget Priorities and Policies, a left-leaning research group.

The final factor, the trustees report said, is that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that decreased income tax rates has reduced revenue that would’ve flowed into the program.

The SSA didn’t respond for requests to comment.

The Social Security system had been strained long before the trustees report. The giant baby boomer generation has been retiring since around 2011, siphoning millions from the program, Solomon said.

In 1950, when the first boomers were 4 years old, every 100 workers paid the Social Security benefits of 13 elderly people, Solomon said. Today, it’s 25 elderly people per 100 workers — “more responsibility on a single working person to support more retirees,” Solomon said.

That worries Doris Kitt, 81, of Jenkintown, a Social Security benefits recipient who still works at a South Jersey pediatric dental practice.

“Less Social Security when rent and food continue to cost more is a challenge,” Kitt said.

Through the years, Republicans and Democrats have forwarded competing remedies for repairing Social Security.

GOP suggestions include raising the retirement age to 70, and privatizing the system.

Democrats call for raising payroll taxes and ending the payroll tax cap. (Currently, wages above $184,500 are not subject to Social Security taxes. Democrats would eliminate the cap so higher-income earners pay into the system on 100% of their earnings.)

In a statement, U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Northeast Philadelphia Democrat running for reelection in November against Republican challenger Jessica Arriaga, said the trustees report makes it clear that “we must act to protect Social Security benefits for all generations.“

He referenced a bill he introduced in May 2025 that would require Americans earning more than $400,000 to contribute a greater percentage of their wages to Social Security. It’s now before the House Ways and Means Committee.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, a Republican representing Lancaster County, also issued a statement, saying Social Security could be fixed by a “bipartisan fiscal commission” to “build consensus” and eliminate depletions of benefits. Smucker is being opposed by Democrat Nancy Mannion in his bid for reelection.

“We must preserve the trust fund millions of Americans rely on and keep our promise to those who have been paying into the system their entire lives,” he said.

That covenant must be honored, said Sherry Stringfield, 70, a retired city worker from Germantown.

“I spent 55 years of my life paying into Social Security,” she said, “so I want them to give me my due. I expect to receive my benefits until I expire. I need every cent.”