Over at Quora, a questioner asked Does the Social Security Trust Fund really have $2.8 Trillion in assets to pay your Social Security Benefits?. The Seniors Center President Dan Perrin answered:
There is no money in the Social Security Trust Fund. Our Trust Fund exists on paper in a filing cabinet at the Bureau of Public Debt in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Since the mid-1980s Congress has systematically raided the Social Security Trust Fund, spent the money that was supposed to help pay for retirement for baby boomers, and replaced it with non-negotiable Treasury Bonds (stored in that filing cabinet in Parkersburg, West Virginia).
Members of both parties in Congress like to call the $2.8 Trillion that the US Government owes to the Social Security Trust Fund an asset. But, seriously, where is the money to repay the Social Security Trust Fund supposed to come from?
With a $660 Billion Deficit in 2017 and deficits projected to keep going up, the government does not have the money repay the Social Security Trust Fund. Even the “interest” the US Treasury owes to the Social Security Trust Fund is paid with the issue of more Bonds.
For more than 30 years, we’ve asked Congress to have the discipline to leave our Social Security Trust Fund alone. And for 30 years, they’ve spent every penny. Now they’re asking us to trust them to have the discipline to pay it back.