The Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the financial health of the Social Security Trust Funds on March 28. While the key dates for program costs exceeding tax revenues and Trust Fund exhaustion remain unchanged, the report shows improvement in the projected long-term financial status of the Social Security program from last year, particularly in the latter half of the long-range projection period. This improvement is principally the result of methodological changes for projecting certain aspects of immigration.

In the 2008 Annual Report to Congress, the trustees announced:

• The projected point at which tax revenues will fall below program costs comes in 2017 — the same as the estimate in the 2007 report.
• The projected point at which the Trust Funds will be exhausted comes in 2041 — the same as the estimate in last year’s report.
• The projected actuarial deficit over the 75-year long-range period is 1.70 percent of taxable payroll — down from 1.95 percent in last year’s report .
• Over the 75-year period, the Trust Funds would require additional revenue equivalent to $4.3 trillion in today’s dollars to pay all scheduled benefits.

“Social Security is at a crossroads. We face enormous challenges to shore up the system,” said Michael J. Astrue, commissioner of Social Security.

Other highlights of the report include:

• Income, including interest, to the combined Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds amounted to $785 billion in 2007.
• Total expenditures from the combined OASDI Trust Funds amounted to $595 billion in 2007.
• The assets of the combined OASDI Trust Funds increased by about $190 billion in 2007 to a total of $2.2 trillion.
• During 2007, an estimated 163 million people had earnings covered by Social Security and paid payroll taxes.
• Social Security paid benefits of $585 billion in calendar year 2007. There were almost 50 million beneficiaries at the end of the calendar year.
• The cost of $5.5 billion to administer the program in 2007 was a low 0.9 percent of total expenditures.
• The combined Trust Fund assets earned interest at an effective annual rate of 5.3 percent in 2007.