Enable Accessibility
×
Close
Personal Banking Login
Legacy Webster Clients who accessed online banking through websterbank.com or public.websteronline.com:
Legacy Sterling Clients who accessed online banking through SNB.com, please enter your log in credentials below:
If you need assistance, please contact Client Services at [email protected] or 855.274.2800.
e‑Treasury Business Banking
Log in
Safeguarding your online banking sessions is our top priority. For information about how you can help protect your online banking sessions, or if you need additional assistance with your e-Treasury log-in, please contact Client Support at [email protected] or 855.274.2800.

Download our e-Treasury Secure Browser

Business Online Banking
If you need assistance, please contact Client Services at [email protected] or 855.274.2800.
e‑Treasury
Log in
Safeguarding your online banking sessions is our top priority. For information about how you can help protect your online banking sessions, or if you need additional assistance with your e-Treasury log-in, please contact TM Service at [email protected] or 212.575.8020.


Download our e-Treasury Secure Browser

Download the Sterling e-Treasury Token Client


Business Online Banking
If you need assistance, please contact Client Services at [email protected] or 855.274.2800

For optimal viewing experience, please use a supported browser such as Chrome or Edge

Download Edge Download Chrome

Social Security’s future is safe

Published on April 16, 2020 | LPL Financial

Social Security is the bedrock of AmericansÕ retirement income security. So you may have been concerned by the news that the federal government needed to dip into the Social SecurityÕs trust fund to pay for the program this year.

Does that mean Social SecurityÕs future isnÕt safe?

As an economist who has written extensively on retirement and Social Security, I believe the systemÕs problems are manageable. The only question is whether Congress has the political will to resolve them.

A manageable problem

Social Security benefits typically make up the largest share of retireesÕ incomes, even though the average benefit is actually quite modest. In 2016, 41.2 million retired workers received an average monthly benefit of US$1,360.13.

Basically Social Security works like this: TodayÕs workers pay for the benefits of retirees via the payroll tax. For most of the past 35 years, workers paid more into the system than retirees received in benefits, creating a surplus that was invested in interest-accruing trust funds.

The trustees report stated that the federal government will have to tap Social Security reserves to pay a small portion of promised benefits in the current fiscal year for the first time since 1982. They also projected Social Security can continue to pay 100 percent of benefits through 2034 by relying in part on the money in the trust funds.

At that point, the trust funds will be depleted, and Congress will need to decide whether to increase revenue, cut benefits or both. Otherwise, Social Security will be able to pay just 79 percent of promised benefits in 2035 and a little less for the foreseeable future. Social SecurityÕs projected shortfalls over the coming decades are larger than initially estimated because, as my research has shown, rising economic inequality has pushed more individual income beyond the reach of its payroll tax, which was capped at $127,200 in 2017. This has meant less revenue and higher costs than projected.

Despite the alarmist headlines, however, this is neither the end of the world or the end of Social Security. The trust funds were never intended to be left alone Ð and indeed have been tapped many times since they started.

In other words, addressing the financial shortfall poses a manageable long-term challenge. For example, increasing the payroll tax by just 2.88 percentage points would cover the expected shortfall over the next 75 years.

The annual shortfall is also equivalent to about 1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. To put this in perspective, thatÕs less than the 1.4 percent of GDP the recent tax cuts are projected to cost in 2019.

Paying for Social SecurityÕs long-term financial shortfall is a matter of policy choices and political will. In my opinion, it is not an insurmountable economic obstacle

Author

Christian Weller

Professor of Public Policy and Public Affairs, University of Massachusetts Boston

Prior to joining the University of Massachusetts, Boston faculty, Professor Christian Weller was a senior economist at the Center for American Progress, where he remains a senior fellow. He has also worked at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., Center for European Integration Studies at the University of Bonn in Germany, under the Department of Public Policy of the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., and in banking in Germany, Belgium and Poland.

Disclosure statement

Christian Weller has received funding from AARP. Christian Weller is a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress.

All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.

This article was prepared by RSW Publishing.

Related Resources

Webster InvestmentsArticles
3 questions to ask yourself before you claim social security
Planning for retirement is exciting, but it may come with a bit of stress. If you worked hard all your life, now might be the time to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor. One of the things that you may need to consider is when it is time to begin claiming your Social […]
Webster InvestmentsArticles
Investing in your 60s and beyond
Once you are in your 60s, you are likely to focus less on growing your retirement funds than answering, “When do I retire?” And once you crack open your nest egg, how should you allocate its contents? The answer often lies in a substantial shift in your investment strategy. Here are some ideas for investing […]
Webster InvestmentsArticles
529 Plans: the ins and outs of contributions and withdrawals
529 plans can be powerful college savings tools, but you need to understand how your plan works before you can take full advantage of it. Among other things, this means becoming familiar with the finer points of contributions and withdrawals. How much can you contribute? To qualify as a 529 plan under federal rules, a […]
Connect With Us
Learn more about Webster products, services and the communities we serve.
We’d love your feedback