Nearly nine in ten Americans age 65 and older say Social Security benefits for current retirees should stay at scheduled levels even if younger workers have to pay higher taxes, according to a national survey from the Cato Institute.
The finding comes from a YouGov survey of 2,000 adults conducted online from October 9 to October 14, 2025, and published by Cato on December 15, 2025. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.59 percentage points. Respondents were asked to choose between protecting current retiree benefits, even if that means higher taxes on younger workers, and protecting younger workers from higher taxes, even if that means reducing benefits for current retirees.
Among people 65 and older, 89 percent chose protecting current benefits. Support for that option rose with age across the sample: 57 percent among ages 30 to 44, 74 percent among ages 45 to 54, and 84 percent among ages 55 to 64. Adults under 30 were the only group in which a majority, 53 percent, said younger workers should be shielded from higher taxes even if current retirees receive less.
The same survey found broad anxiety about the program and little appetite for personal sacrifice once costs were stated in dollars. Seventy percent of all respondents said they expect benefits to be cut in the future. Thirty percent said they believe Social Security will not exist when they retire. Seventy-seven percent opposed cutting benefits for current and future retirees, and 77 percent opposed paying an additional $1,300 a year in payroll taxes. Cato’s polling director, Emily Ekins, has described the result as the kind of conflict built into a program that transfers money from current workers to current beneficiaries.
Those views sit next to a worsening official forecast. In the 2026 Trustees Report, the Social Security Board of Trustees projects that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund can pay full scheduled benefits until the fourth quarter of 2032. After reserve depletion, continuing income would cover about 78 percent of scheduled benefits if Congress does not act. On a combined basis, which assumes money can be shifted from the Disability Insurance trust fund, reserves are projected to last until 2034, when continuing income would cover about 83 percent of program cost. The trustees describe these figures as estimates under their intermediate assumptions, not as automatic changes already written into benefit checks.
The payroll tax that funds Social Security is 12.4 percent of covered wages, split between workers and employers, up to an annual wage cap. A tax-only repair would require a higher rate. Public support for keeping benefits often drops when people are told the dollar amount. In the Cato survey, many respondents also misunderstood the program: about half did not know that today’s payroll taxes pay today’s beneficiaries, rather than going into a personal account.
Congress has not enacted a solvency plan. Until it does, the trustees’ projection remains a forecast, and the generational split in the poll remains a measure of opinion, not a change in law.
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