For decades, the right has pushed privatization schemes while warning Americans that Social Security might not be there when they retire. Republicans have also refused to strengthen its finances as economic and demographic conditions changed, helping turn their warning into a threat.

Social Security is now projected to lack enough money to pay full benefits beginning in 2032 unless Congress acts. According to the latest trustees report, trust fund reserves and anticipated payroll tax revenue would cover only 78% of promised benefits.

That would leave recipients facing a 22% benefit cut in just six years. Progressives should use that danger to strengthen America’s most cherished social insurance program rather than accepting another round of austerity dressed up as responsibility.

The largest reason for the shortfall is stagnant wages. Social Security depends on payroll taxes, and the gap would be much smaller if wages had risen alongside economic growth at the pace seen before the 1980s.

Instead, nearly all of the economy’s net gains flowed to the rich, whose Social Security taxes are capped. The current cap is $184,500 and is adjusted annually for inflation, so most workers pay Social Security taxes on all their earnings while millionaires are taxed on only a small portion.

Much of the income received by the very wealthy also comes from capital, which is entirely exempt from Social Security taxes. That carveout leaves ordinary workers carrying a far larger relative share of the burden.

People living longer is another reason for the shortfall, since beneficiaries properly continue receiving payments until they die. Declining birth rates and declining immigration rates also mean a smaller workforce and less payroll tax revenue.

Benefit cuts should be rejected because existing payments are already too small. More than 50% of people older than 65 depend on Social Security for over half their income, while 25% rely on it for at least 90% of their income.

Traditional pension plans have also collapsed in favor of inadequate 401(k) plans, leaving Social Security with even greater importance. Means testing benefits for affluent recipients would generate only trivial savings while weakening the universality that has sustained broad political support for the program.

A better solution would ask wealthy Americans to contribute more. Congress could restore income and capital gains taxes on the rich that were reduced by President Trump’s 2017 tax cut, then direct part of that revenue into the Social Security trust funds.

Support from general revenue was part of Social Security’s original 1935 design. Its architects understood that the growing ratio of retirees to workers would eventually require funding beyond payroll taxes, especially because payroll taxes are regressive while income taxes are progressive.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio have called for eliminating the income cap. According to the trustees, that change would close about 67% of the projected shortfall and allow full benefits to continue through 2059.

Extending Social Security taxes to capital income could close the rest of the gap. Income from all forms of capital totaled about $6 trillion in 2025, compared with $12.2 trillion from wages and salaries, and taxing capital would place more of the cost on the mega rich.

Eliminating the income cap still presents difficult politics because a person making $350,000 could face an annual tax increase exceeding $10,000. Taxing capital income may therefore prove politically stronger, but Trump would veto a progressive overhaul, making the debate preparation for 2028 and a possible Democratic White House.

The last serious shortfall led Congress in 1981 to create a bipartisan commission that recommended higher taxes and benefit cuts through an increased retirement age. Its projected 75 years of solvency fell below 50 years because planners did not anticipate decades of stagnant wages and reduced payroll tax receipts.

Another commission could examine financing options, but benefit cuts should remain off the table, and payments at the bottom should increase. Social Security already delivers higher returns to workers with lower incomes, making taxation of extreme concentrated wealth the clearest path toward secure retirement for ordinary Americans.