Definition of Social Security Trust Fund
What is the "Social Security Trust Fund"? What is the definition of the term "Social Security Trust Fund"?
The "Social Security Trust Fund" is a fund that was set up by Congress to collect income (mostly in the form of payroll taxes) and make Social Security disbursement payments. The Social Security Trust fund is managed by the Department of the Treasury.
The Social Security Trust fund is comprised of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust fund - jointly they are known as OASDI.
Any excess funds in both OASI and DI are invested in special non-marketable securities of the US government. As of the end of 2011, OASI had over $2.5 trillion in assets and DI had roughly $154 billion. All of this money was invested in the securities listed above. In 2011, OASI brought in $698.8 billion in income and paid out $603.8 billion. The remaining amount, $95 billion, was added to the fund's asset total and invested in the US government securities.
The OASI listed four different sources of income in 2011 - they were:
Payroll taxes - $482.4 billion
Taxes on Benefits - $22.2 billion
General Fund reimbursements - $87.8 billion
Interest Earnings - $106.5 billion
The $603.8 billion in expenditures in 2011 consisted of:
Benefit Payments - $596.2 billion
Railroad Retirement Financial Interchange - $4.1 billion
Administrative Expenses - $3.5 billion
Thanks to an aging Baby Boomer population, the Social Security Trust Fund will eventually start paying out more than what it takes in. The Social Security Administration's Board of Trustees recently pointed out that Social Security's expenditures exceeded non-interest income in 2010 and 2011 for the first time since 1983.
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