6 In 10 Americans Fear Social Security Will Vanish Before They Retire, As 2033 Insolvency Clock Ticks Louder

Six in ten working-age Americans fear Social Security will vanish before they retire, a new DepositAccounts survey finds, underscoring a widening confidence gap as the program's main trust fund edges toward depletion in 2033.

What Happened: The poll of 1,047 non-retirees shows 59% doubt the program will exist by the time they hang up their paychecks. The anxiety is sharpest for Generation X, where 70% share the concern. That dread persists even though Social Security still supplies more than half of all income for 40% of today's retirees, according to the Social Security Administration.

As per this year's trustees report, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance fund can pay full benefits for just eight more years. Once its reserves run dry, incoming payroll taxes would cover only 79% of promised checks. "It's not that far away. We're creeping up on it," certified-financial-planner Jaime Eckels told CNBC, warning that the countdown has moved from abstract to immediate for many savers.

Polling elsewhere points in the same direction, or worse. Gallup in 2024 reports 80% of Americans now worry about Social Security's future, the highest share in two decades. Transamerica's 2024 middle-class survey shows 39% of households fear benefits "will be reduced or cease to exist."

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Still, not every gauge is as bleak. The 2025 Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute found about half of workers remain at least "somewhat confident" the government will pay benefits of equal value to today's. Even so, 60% worry about cuts.

Why It Matters: Analysts stress that insolvency does not equal disappearance. "The truth is that it's highly, highly unlikely Social Security ‘won't be available,'" DepositAccounts quoted LendingTree's Matt Schulz as saying, urging savers to bolster private nest eggs rather than panic. That mirrors comments by BlackRock BLK chief Larry Fink, who recently told an audience that the U.S. must modernize, not abandon, the program — citing the same 2033 deadline.

Yet fear itself is already reshaping behavior. A growing number of claimants are taking benefits at 62 to grab what they can before any reforms bite, despite the permanent haircut early filing brings.

Image via Shutterstock

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