Just like most western governments, the US government has gone deeply into debt to fund its social insurance programs.

Officially, the US government is now $18.5 trillion in debt, and Social Security is the biggest financial sinkhole in America.

Social Security's various trust funds currently hold about $2.7 trillion in total assets; yet the government itself estimates the program's liabilities to exceed $40 trillion.

And Social Security's second biggest trust fund, the Disability Insurance fund, will be fully depleted in a matter of weeks.

The trustees who manage these massive funds on behalf of the current and future retirees of America are clearly concerned.

In the 2015 report of the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees they state very plainly:

"Social Security as a whole as well as Medicare cannot sustain projected long-run program costs…", and that the government should be "giving the public adequate time to prepare."