Between Editions: The Fragile Future of America’s Safety Net
A promise frayed and a future more uncertain than ever
As Social Security approaches its 90th birthday, confidence in the system is wavering. Among younger Americans, anxiety is palpable: more than a third of people under 65 don’t believe they will ever see a penny from the program, according to a recent NerdWallet survey. Their skepticism reflects both lived experience and ominous projections from government reports that, year after year, warn that the nation’s bedrock retirement program is running out of time.
That unease is not just generational angst. It is grounded in numbers, policy shifts, and demographics that point to a program under strain. The Social Security Administration (SSA) itself now estimates that its retirement trust fund could be depleted by 2033. Chief Actuary Karen Glenn has cautioned that the date might come even sooner, late in 2032, after President Donald Trump’s recent budget cut federal revenues. If Congress does nothing, the system will still exist—but retirees would see benefits cut by nearly a quarter overnight.
For millions who will rely on Social Security as their primary or only source of income, that haircut could mean the difference between stability and insecurity. For younger workers, it casts a shadow over decades of contributions to a program that may not deliver on its original promise.
From Pensions to Payroll Taxes
The unease is magnified by the disappearance of alternatives. Defined benefit pensions, once a staple of American retirement, have all but vanished. Only 8% of workers under 30 had one in 2023, according to Federal Reserve data. Social Security has become the default safety net, designed to replace about 40% of pre-retirement income.
The mechanics are simple but unforgiving: 6.2% of wages, up to $176,100 in 2025, is deducted from every paycheck and matched by employers. That money funds current retirees, not future obligations. The worker-to-retiree ratio, once 16 to 1 in 1950, has collapsed to fewer than 3 to 1. Baby boomers are retiring in waves, living longer, and drawing more from the system, while birthrates have fallen and immigration has slowed. The math no longer works.
The Trump Factor
Tax policy has further accelerated the crunch. Trump’s elimination of federal income taxes on Social Security benefits—a popular move among seniors—will reduce federal revenues by as much as $1.45 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the Penn Wharton Budget Model. That immediate relief for retirees comes at the cost of hastening insolvency and shifting the burden onto younger generations.
In addition, the administration’s restructuring of the SSA has introduced new friction for the most vulnerable. Disability and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients, many of them poor or disabled, report that it has become harder to access benefits. Staff reductions, rushed appointments, and new phone systems have left applicants struggling to navigate a process already infamous for its complexity. For many, that means greater risks of homelessness, food insecurity, or worse.
The administration counters with its own metrics, pointing to declining disability claim backlogs and higher online satisfaction scores. But for those who lack internet access or who need face-to-face help, the system has become less accessible. The tension between efficiency gains and real-world outcomes reflects the broader challenge of balancing budget discipline with the needs of vulnerable populations.
A Political Hot Potato
Fixing Social Security is straightforward in theory but politically treacherous in practice. Policymakers have three levers: raise payroll taxes, raise the retirement age, or cut benefits. Each is toxic in its own way. Republicans resist higher taxes. Democrats resist raising the retirement age. No one wants to campaign on cutting benefits.
Catherine Collinson of the nonprofit Transamerica Institute believes the eventual solution will involve all three. “They’ll have to change the benefit formula,” she told CNBC. “Raising taxes, raising the retirement age, or reducing payments—some combination will be needed.” But every year of inaction narrows the options. Delay until the trust fund is nearly exhausted, and the adjustments will be sharper and more painful.
Meanwhile, partisan gridlock rules Washington. Modest proposals from both parties have failed to advance. The longer lawmakers wait, the more abrupt the reckoning will be. For a typical dual-earner couple retiring just after insolvency, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates an $18,400 annual reduction in benefits.
Preparing for Less
For individuals, the takeaway is clear: assume smaller checks and plan accordingly. That starts with reviewing your Social Security statement, which projects benefits based on your highest-earning 35 years and shows how payouts change depending on when you claim. Financial planners recommend running “backward math”: calculate how much your retirement savings can generate annually at a 4% withdrawal rate, then add in your projected benefits. Does the total support the lifestyle you expect? If not, more saving—or different expectations—may be necessary.
Phillip Battin of Ambassador Wealth Management advises planning around worst-case scenarios. “The American mind always wants to build on the best-case scenario. That’s utopian thinking, and it gets us in trouble,” he told CNBC. Building flexibility into retirement planning, he argues, is the only path to peace of mind. If cuts don’t materialize, savers simply enjoy more cushion.
The Broader Stakes
The debate over Social Security is not just about math. It is about the social contract. For generations, the program has embodied an agreement between workers and retirees: pay in now, and you will be supported later. That contract lifted millions of older Americans out of poverty and became one of the most successful anti-poverty programs in U.S. history.
But the 2020s are testing that promise as never before. Structural demographic pressures, fiscal policy decisions, and political paralysis are converging on the same point: the system must change, and soon. For younger Americans, that means facing retirement with uncertainty about how much support they will actually receive. For current retirees, it raises the risk of abrupt cuts.
The program is not vanishing, experts stress. Payroll taxes will continue to fund most benefits. But without reforms, those benefits will be smaller, and the gap between what workers expect and what they receive will grow.
The Choice Ahead
More than 70 million Americans already depend on Social Security, and tens of millions more are counting on it for their future. The stakes could hardly be higher. Policymakers know the levers. Economists know the math. What is missing is the political will.
For now, Washington’s paralysis leaves the burden on households to plan for a leaner future. The younger generations’ skepticism may be pessimistic—but it is also pragmatic. In the absence of timely reform, planning for less may be the only way to safeguard against disappointment.
The question is whether America’s leaders can summon the courage to act before the system reaches the breaking point. If not, the nation’s most enduring safety net may endure, but in diminished form—its promise frayed, its trust eroded, and its future more uncertain than ever.
CEOs Fear Trump’s Expanding Reach
The nation’s top economic statistician has been dismissed. Central bank independence is being chipped away. Washington is buying into private companies, demanding slices of revenue, and using “golden shares” to gain leverage. Presidential tariff power has been exercised with a force never seen before. And regulators are threatening media companies over jokes told by late-night comics.
All of this has unfolded not in an authoritarian state, but in the United States under President Donald Trump. Scholars and business leaders warn the pattern points to democratic erosion, with consequences that could ripple through the economy for years.
“I have never been this concerned about democracy in the United States,” Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told CNN. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale, known for his deep ties in the business world, was just as blunt: “We’ve had a serious erosion of the foundations of democracy.”
The economic stakes are real. A 2019 study in the Journal of Political Economy found that democratization raises GDP per capita by roughly 20 percent over the long term, driven by more investment, schooling, and health spending. By contrast, a 2023 study in the American Economic Review found that populist leaders leave economies weaker, with GDP per capita about 10 percent lower after 15 years than if nonpopulists had governed.
Williamson said democratic erosion had been gradual in the U.S., but has “rapidly” accelerated this year. That view is echoed in boardrooms, even if few CEOs speak up publicly. Business leaders know the risks of crossing the president. When Trump’s FCC chair threatened Disney and ABC over on-air remarks by comedian Jimmy Kimmel, the network suspended the show indefinitely — a move Trump celebrated. “That’s straight from the autocratic playbook,” Williamson warned. Sonnenfeld called it “horrifying,” adding that the erosion of free expression “is really alarming.”
Trump’s pressure on independent institutions has been equally sharp. He fired Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a weak jobs report, accusing her of “cooking the books.” Erika McEntarfer, the ousted statistician, said her dismissal “made no sense” and warned it could destabilize the economy.
At the same time, the administration has taken an activist role in private enterprise. Trump demanded the resignation of Intel’s CEO, later presiding over an $8.9 billion federal investment in the company. The government has taken stakes in U.S. Steel and MP Materials, America’s largest rare earths miner. Former Vice President Mike Pence compared such moves to the state ownership common in Russia and China, calling it “perilous.” Sonnenfeld went further: “It’s as if MAGA has gone Maoist.”
The White House defends its approach, citing investment commitments from Apple, Nvidia, and Merck as proof that confidence is being restored. But critics argue the combination of heavy-handed state intervention and open threats to independent institutions points to an unsettling trajectory.
Publicly, CEOs remain quiet. Privately, Sonnenfeld says they are deeply alarmed, but increasingly fragmented — meeting sector by sector instead of uniting in a common voice. For democracy’s defenders, that splintering only sharpens the danger that erosion could accelerate unchecked.
CEOs Step Up Investment but Pull Back on Hiring
America’s top executives are sending a mixed signal about the economy. A new Business Roundtable survey shows rising confidence in capital spending, but a continued pullback in hiring — a dynamic that could boost productivity while leaving workers on edge.
The Roundtable’s economic outlook index climbed seven points last quarter, though it remains below its historical average. The improvement was driven largely by investment plans: 38 percent of CEOs expect to increase capital expenditures over the next six months, a ten-point jump from the prior survey. Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, who chairs the group, said the uptick reflects optimism about “pro-growth tax policies” in President Trump’s tax-and-spending package.
But the employment picture tells another story. For the second straight quarter, the survey’s hiring sub-index stayed below the level that has historically signaled contraction. Tariffs and uncertainty continue to weigh on labor demand. While the measure ticked up slightly, most executives said they expect headcounts to remain flat. Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten called the outlook fragmented, with “trade-exposed industries like manufacturing facing headwinds.”
The findings align with a broader economic shift. Companies are pouring money into technology — from artificial intelligence to data centers — investments that may yield higher output without a surge in hiring. “We’re getting unusually large amounts of economic activity through the AI build-out and corporate investment,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said this week. “No one knows how long that will go on.” Data compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations shows that data center spending contributed more to GDP between late 2024 and mid-2025 than consumer spending.
Sales expectations also strengthened. Seventy-one percent of CEOs anticipate revenue growth in the next six months, up four points from the previous quarter. Yet much of that gain could reflect higher prices as tariff-related costs are passed on to customers.
Bolten urged both the administration and trade partners to push for relief. “The President has secured some significant concessions in trade negotiations, and we urge our trading partners and the Administration to continue working together to remove harmful tariffs and non-tariff barriers,” he said.
The survey offers a snapshot of an economy in transition: boardrooms are prepared to invest, but not to hire. For workers, that raises a sobering question — how long before the benefits of growth are felt beyond the balance sheets?
Trumponomics Faces a Worker Shortage
President Trump has staked his economic agenda on reviving U.S. manufacturing, supercharging artificial intelligence, and driving blockbuster growth. Yet the same policies fueling those ambitions may also choke off the labor supply needed to deliver them.
The administration’s immigration crackdown reached a new milestone Friday when the White House unveiled a dramatic hike in fees for H-1B visas, the main program for skilled foreign workers. Companies must now pay $100,000 per application, up from $2,500. Trump also ordered the Labor Department to tighten pay rules, making it harder for firms to rely on foreign talent. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put it bluntly: “If you are going to train people, you’re going to train Americans.”
The problem for business is that the supply of American workers with specialized skills is already thin. Firms in tech, manufacturing, and health care say the shift leaves them short-staffed. Economists warn the policy compounds a deeper demographic squeeze: baby boomers are retiring in large numbers, fertility rates have fallen, and immigration — once a vital offset — is plunging.
The Congressional Budget Office cut its immigration estimate for this year to just 400,000, down from 2 million in January. That sharp decline means U.S. population growth will hover around 0.3% annually, a third of the pace seen a decade ago. With fewer workers entering the economy, job growth has already slowed — averaging just 27,000 per month over the summer.
Morgan Stanley economists note that labor supply and demand are now shrinking at roughly the same rate. But unlike the years after the financial crisis, there is no hidden pool of sidelined workers to tap. Employment among prime-age Americans is near record highs, leaving little slack.
The administration has emphasized boosting workforce participation among native-born men, pointing to the fact that 86.5% of men aged 25 to 54 are employed — below the 90%-plus rates common before 1980. Restoring that historic level would add more than 2 million workers, but reversing a decades-long decline may be unrealistic.
That leaves a paradox at the heart of Trumponomics. The White House wants more goods made in America and rapid adoption of advanced technologies. But by shutting off immigrant labor and watching the boomer generation exit, the economy may lack the workers to capitalize on those investments. The promise of stronger growth could be undercut by the simplest of shortages: people.
Between Editions is a free midweek feature of The Rising Tide, my weekly Substack newsletter exploring the collision of politics, markets, and technology, published every Saturday. Paid subscribers get exclusive access to behind-the-scenes reporting, sharper analysis, and context we can’t publish for free. If you want the full story behind the headlines — and to support independent journalism — subscribe now.
Bonus: Paid subscribers to The Rising Tide also get our sister newsletter, Barber’s Mexico Business Report, at no extra cost.