At some point over the last couple of weeks we briefly thought that perhaps our task of hounding the press for dropping the ball on the basic facts concerning Social Security was winding down.
Silly us.
We spent Monday and Wednesday once again explaining the difference between 4 percent and 4 percentage points. And today we’ve discovered that the not everyone is clear on the difference between zero and 73.
By not everyone, we mean the reporters over at the Washington Times. Often times, we just let the journalistic sins over at the ink-and-paper temple of Sun Myung Moon pass by, but this one is so out of left field that we had to share.
Today the Washington Times‘ Bill Sammon and Amy Fagan tell us:
With the baby boomer generation nearing retirement, the Social Security system is expected to begin paying out more in benefits than it collects within 15 years and become unable to pay any benefits as early as 2042. [Italics added.]
Any way you cut it, the latter part of that statement is not true; in fact, it’s way beyond even an exaggeration. According to projections by the Social Security Trustees, if nothing at all were to be done about amending the current Social Security program over the next 37 years, the system would still be able to pay 73 percent of scheduled benefits in 2042. No one with any semblance of intellectual honesty has suggested that the current system will be paying out ZERO dollars in 2042.
Until now.
–Thomas Lang
Thomas Lang was a writer at CJR Daily.