The comprehensive budget deal that passed Congress last week involved the temporary release of three hostages: One hostage was the debt limit, which will not need to be raised before March, 2017. A second hostage was the federal government, which might not, depending on who you ask, experience another shutdown for two fiscal years. The third hostage was Social Security.
Like the hostage-taking over the debt limit and funding the government, the Social Security hostage involves something that should be routine. But these days, with this Congress, nothing is routine. To understand the Social Security hostage-taking, it is important to understand a technical aspect of Social Security with which no one but experts should be concerned.
When workers have Social Security contributions deducted from their wages, those deducted monies are premiums for Social Security’s insurance against the loss of wages in the event of death, disability or old age. Those deducted funds are sent by their employers to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Unbeknownst to most people, the money is then divided between two separate trust funds. This is a quirk of history. Two parts of Social Security’s wage insurance — protection against the loss of wages in the event of death and old age — were enacted in the 1930s. That is when the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund (“OASI”) was established. The designers of Social Security wanted disability insurance enacted in the 1930s, as well, but it didn’t happen until 1956. When it did, its own trust fund (“DI”) was established.