by Robert Pear, The New York Times
June 22nd, 2015
WASHINGTON — Eleven million people face a deep, abrupt cut in disability insurance benefits in late 2016 if Congress fails to replenish Social Security’s disability trust fund, which is running out of money, the Obama administration said Wednesday.
Officials expressed concern about the program as they issued their annual report on the financial condition of Medicare and Social Security, which together account for about 40 percent of all federal spending.
The trustees of Social Security, including three cabinet secretaries, said the disability trust fund would be depleted in the last quarter of 2016. After that, they said, benefits would automatically be cut by 19 percent because revenues, largely from payroll taxes, would be sufficient to cover only 81 percent of scheduled benefit payments.
