What’s Really in the Social Security Trust Fund?

“You’re kidding, right?” a Daily Reckoning reader wrote after our briefing from last week: “The End of Social Security As We Know It.” “Are you the only ones who believe in the accounting farces that are the Social Security and Medicare ‘Trust Funds’? Every dollar in both of those funds has been spent by the US Treasury…”

We weren’t kidding, dear reader… There’s only so much reckonin’ we can do in one day. Last week we chronicled a turning point for retirement in America: On September 30, the Social Security Trust Fund will officially begin paying out more than it’s taking in. Now, you – and many others who wrote in – provide an inadvertent introduction to our final question in this Social Security Series: What, exactly, is in that fund?

The quick answer is this, as we noted Saturday. “With $2.6 trillion left in the Social Security war chest, there is no immediate threat to the status quo.”

The Social Security Trust Fund is, in fact, worth roughly $2.6 trillion. The status quo is safe at the moment. But as you hinted, there isn’t a single US dollar in that fund…and anyone who thinks the money they’ve been sending the government to pay for retirement is neatly stacked in a giant vault – some super-sized swimming pool of money – has the wrong idea. (more)