Several Social Security proposals are waiting for lawmakers when Congress returns from recess, as pressure grows to address the program’s finances and future benefits. Tens of millions of Americans receive Social Security, including roughly 57.6 million retirement beneficiaries, 5.8 million people receiving survivor benefits and nearly 8 million receiving disability benefits. As of July 2026, the average monthly payment across the program was about $1,940, while retired workers received an average of roughly $2,086.
But despite its overwhelming significance to the everyday American, lawmakers face an increasingly urgent question over how to finance those benefits in the decades ahead. Four proposals currently sitting in Congress take different approaches, ranging from raising taxes on higher earners to establishing bipartisan processes intended to force lawmakers to agree on a long-term solution. Social Security is primarily financed through payroll taxes paid by workers and employers.
In 2026, employees and employers each pay a 6.2 percent Social Security tax on wages up to $184,500, while self-employed workers generally pay the combined 12.4 percent rate. But the money coming into the system is no longer enough to cover all of its costs. Social Security collected about $1.45 trillion in 2025 while spending about $1.61 trillion, with the difference made up from its trust fund reserves.
Those combined reserves fell from about $2.72 trillion at the beginning of 2025 to $2.56 trillion by the end of the year. The latest Social Security trustees report, published earlier this year, has found that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund (OASI), which finances retirement and survivor benefits, will exhaust its reserves in the fourth quarter of 2032. At that point, continuing tax revenue would be sufficient to pay about 78 percent of scheduled benefits if Congress did nothing.
Looking at the combined retirement and disability funds on a theoretical combined basis, reserves would be depleted in 2034 and about 83 percent of scheduled benefits could be paid, equivalent to a roughly 17 percent funding shortfall. Social Security would therefore not simply disappear when its reserves run out, but beneficiaries could face substantial cuts to benefits unless lawmakers act. The four bills on the table offer lawmakers very different starting points when the Social Security debate returns: two lay out specific tax and benefit expansions, while the other two seek to create a bipartisan process through which Congress could negotiate a solvency deal.
The Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Maintaining Income Security for Everyone Act of 2026, or PROMISE Act, is a piece of bipartisan Senate legislation introduced on July 14 by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Its backers span both parties and include Republican Senators Bill Cassidy, Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Chris Coons, independent Senator Angus King and Republican Senator Alan Armstrong. It has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee.
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