Social Security funds are drying up…will there be any money left when you retire?

Social Security is America’s largest federal program. In 2015, it paid out $870 billion to more than 59 million Americans.

Most Americans see Social Security as a retirement savings program. During your working life, you pay 6.2% of every paycheck to Social Security. In return, the government sends you a check every month after you retire.

However, unlike a retirement plan like a 401(k), the money you pay into Social Security doesn’t land in your own personal account. Instead, it goes into one big pot called the “Social Security Trust Fund.”

The Social Security program pays retirees from this pot. As long as enough money flows into the pot, the program works, and retired people get the payments they expect.

•  Last year, the Social Security Trust Fund lost money…

On Wednesday, Investor’s Business Daily reported (emphasis ours):

The Social Security Trust Fund just suffered its first annual decline since Congress shored up the retirement program in 1983.

The unexpected $3 billion decline is an indication of the precarious state of Social Security’s finances. Since 2010, the program has been paying out more in benefits than it gets in tax revenue.

In 1955, there were 8.6 workers paying into Social Security for every one person receiving Social Security. Today, due to America’s aging population, there are just 2.8 workers for every recipient. And that number will decline as the “baby boomer” generation continues to retire.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects Social Security to go broke within 13 years, according to Investor’s Business Daily.

Social Security’s cash shortfall is expected to rapidly escalate from $74 billion a year to $361 billion in 2025 alone, the Congressional Budget Office projects. Under current policies, the CBO says the trust fund will be gone by 2029.