The economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic is likely to accelerate the depletion dates for Social Security and Medicare programs, Trump administration officials said Thursday morning.
Job and revenue losses prompted by the virus are the culprit and these will contribute to the already expected long-term funding shortfalls for retirement, disability and seniors’ health-care benefits, which are analyzed in two reports released Wednesday by trustees for the program.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement that the programs, which make up the federal government's two largest expenditures, "remain secure," but added that the Trump administration was "working around the clock" to mitigate long-term negative economic impacts from the pandemic.
While administration officials have made no official projections on the effects of the virus, if a 15% reduction in employment and revenues persists over 2020, the officials expect the program depletion dates will move forward.
Assuming there is a return to normal employment levels in 2021, the decrease in Social Security revenue would move forward the depletion date of reserves by six months to mid-2034, the officials said.
According to the trustee report on Social Security released this morning, which does not have the impact of the coronavirus factored in, the fund can pay full scheduled benefits until 2035. That is the same year projected in last year's agency report. Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund can pay scheduled in-patient hospital expenses until 2026, also the same as in last year's report.
In a worst-case scenario that sees a second year of 15% reductions, the Social Security depletion could move up to 2033, Trump officials said on the conference call.
Medicare, the health-care program for older Americans, could face both a revenue hit and a significant increase in hospitalization costs, and the reckoning for trust fund depletion could come considerably sooner.
Under a "high-cost" scenario, the Medicare hospital trust fund would be depleted in 2023.
"It is also possible that the experience could be even worse than that," said an administration official on a conference call. "It truly is too early to say exactly what the impacts are. But you are correct in that they are generally going to be worse than presented under the immediate assumptions."