Social Security

The latest projections for Social Security and Medicare find, somewhat counterintuitively, that the combined funds will run out of money in 2034, a year earlier than previously expected, due in no small part to Covid-19. While the pandemic-caused spike in deaths among retirement-age Americans helped reduce expenditures, earlier retirements, a contraction in the labor force, reduced earnings, weaker GDP, lower interest rates, and higher healthcare costs more than offset.