Social Security surfaces as key issue in midterm races as insolvency looms
Next week’s midterm elections could prove momentous for Social Security, with time running out to put the program on solid financial ground. Social Security trustees’ most recent report projects that the program’s main trust fund is on course to be depleted by late 2032, after which Social Security recipients would face a more than 20% cut in benefits.
In effect, that means the burden of repairing Social Security will fall on both sitting and newly elected lawmakers. If Congress wants to avert what would amount to a devastating financial blow for millions of Americans, it will need to solve an issue that previous generations of legislators have punted on for decades.
“The pressure on Congress is going to just be tremendous going forward,” said Martha Shedden, president of the National Association of Registered Social Security Analysts, an organization that trains Social Security advisers. “Every time that the annual trustees report comes out, there’s more and more consternation about what lawmakers are doing.”
Social Security’s funding is running low largely due to demographic factors, as the U.S. population ages. More baby boomers are claiming benefits while comparatively fewer workers are paying into the program, forcing the agency to draw down its trust funds.
Concerns over the future of Social Security — a key issue for older Americans, a powerful political constituency — have surfaced in multiple electoral races across the country, including in key battleground states.
In the Michigan Senate race, for example, Republican candidate Mike Rogers highlighted the importance of eliminating fraud when asked to outline possible fixes to the program during an Oct. 25 debate. Rogers’ opponent, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, expressed support for removing the cap on income subject to employee payroll taxes “so that the rich pay their fair share.”
The current payroll tax income limit is $184,500, with any earnings above that amount exempt from payroll taxes. The tax is 12.4%, with employers and workers each contributing 6.2%.
Other candidates around the country have also endorsed scrapping the cap, which would require high-income workers to pay the Social Security tax on a greater share of their income. In a recent analysis of 20 Senate races by economist Jon Schwabish, around half of the candidates said they would support raising or eliminating the cap.
Others have been more vague about their plans to shore up Social Security, simply committing to ensuring that Americans collect their full benefits rather than offering detailed policy proposals.
Battleground battle
Social Security reform is also a hot-button issue in the battleground state of Maine, which data shows has the oldest population of any U.S. state. Around 390,000 Maine residents were collecting Social Security as of December 2025, according to the Social Security Administration, more than a quarter of the state’s total population.
In a September AARP poll of nearly 1,000 likely Maine voters aged 50-plus, 81% said Social Security is one of the issues that will factor into their vote. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, and her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, have each proposed possible ways to stabilize Social Security.
Jackson, a logger who previously served in Maine’s state senate, has committed to eliminating the payroll tax income cap.
“People who work hard their entire lives should be able to retire with dignity,” Jackson said in a statement to CBS News. “While Susan Collins has repeatedly voted to weaken Social Security, I’ll work to scrap the cap because billionaires should pay into Social Security at the same rate teachers and loggers do. Social Security is a promise, and I intend to keep it.”
Collins has painted herself as a champion for reform, having co-sponsored the Social Security Fairness Act with Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. The bill, which passed in 2025 under former President Joe Biden, eliminated federal policies that barred employees with a public pension from collecting their full Social Security benefits and that reduced benefits for those workers’ surviving spouses and family members.
In a television interview last week with News Center Maine, a local media outlet, Collins suggested creating a bipartisan commission to develop solutions to the projected Social Security shortfall, “such as potentially raising the earnings cap for Social Security taxes.” She also vowed not to cut benefits, a proposal that has gained traction among some Republicans.
“As chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the author of the Social Security Fairness Act, and a longtime advocate for Maine’s seniors, I remain committed to keeping the Social Security program strong for current and future generations,” she said in the interview.
