Current State Of Social Security

As of December 16, 2015 according to The Congressional Budget Office's Long Term Outlook for Social Security.. "In fiscal year 2015, spending for Social Security benefits totaled $877 billion, or almost one-quarter of federal spending."
HOWEVER..
"Social Security is funded by dedicated tax revenues from two sources: payroll taxes and income taxes on benefits. Today, 96 percent of that tax revenue comes from the payroll tax—generally, 12.4 percent of people’s earnings that are subject to the Social Security tax. Workers and their employers each pay half; self-employed people pay the entire amount. Earnings up to a maximum annual amount—now $118,500—are subject to the payroll tax. The remaining share of tax revenues for the program—about 4 percent—is collected from income taxes on Social Security benefits. The tax revenues that funded the program totaled $786 billion in fiscal year 2015.

According to CBO’s extended baseline projections, the DI trust fund will be exhausted in fiscal year 2021, the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in calendar year 2030, and the combined OASDI trust funds will be exhausted in calendar year 2029. If a trust fund’s balance declined to zero and current revenues were insufficient to cover benefits specified in law, the Social Security Administration would no longer be permitted to pay full benefits when they were due. In the years after a trust fund was exhausted, annual outlays would be limited to annual revenues:"

It appears Social Security is doing quite well and would continue to do so with a few adjustments in combination with either one or more of these simple fixes. (1) Raise the rate by one of two percentage points. (2) Raise the minimum wage (thus increasing the contributions going into it). (3) Raise the maximum annual earnings amount.



As far as critics of SS...
In the private sector if a company is coming up short over what they pay out, they would increase their billing and/or enroll wealthier clients (larger wage earners). I fail to see how Social Security should be run any different. Utmost to keep in mind "the government" is not contributing one damned nickel towards this program no matter what some would otherwise have us believe.

I appalls me some have no problem volunteering to risk gambling their hard earned incomes trusting the crooks on wall street with their 401K contributions up to $24,000 in 2016 (with no guaranteed results). Yet oppose SS benefits which could vastly out perform what they ever hoped to see monthly coming in at retirement age from their 401k's. Often SS contributions are a fraction of that many risk playing the stock market only to end up disappointed. If there's anyone to be less trusted then the government it just has to be these money changers. Some folks need to learn that this hard way I suppose.

If people want to spend another pile of money outside SS, do that on your own dime. As for me, I support long term viable solutions keeping SS strong for the rest of us who aren't thinking along those lines.