Poll: 96% want Senate candidates to address Social Security cuts

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

Ninety-six percent of voters want Senate candidates to explain how they’ll prevent an automatic 22% Social Security benefit cut for 70 million Americans, a new poll finds, as the program’s trust fund moves toward a 2032 deadline.

A poll by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a foundation focused on reducing the national debt and long-term federal fiscal sustainability, found 92% of Americans are concerned the growing national debt is driving up the cost of living.

Inflation climbed 4.2% over the past year through May, the highest rate in more than three years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The foundation’s Fiscal Confidence Index, Peterson’s own measure of public sentiment on the debt, stands at 39 out of 200 in June, indicating pessimism about the nation’s fiscal outlook.

Social Security’s retirement trust fund is projected to be depleted in 2032, triggering an automatic 22% cut to benefits for about 70 million Americans. If Congress doesn’t act, beneficiaries could lose about $500 a month, or $6,000 a year, according to a June 3, 2026 Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget report.

Eighty-eight percent of voters said they are concerned the national debt is contributing to higher borrowing costs, including credit card interest, car loan rates and mortgage rates.

“Inflation just hit a three-year high, and voters understand that the rising debt and interest rates are adding to their daily affordability challenges,” said Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peterson Foundation. “As we approach the midterm elections, voters are calling for leaders to put forward solutions to our $39 trillion debt, which will help address America’s affordability crisis and put our country on a stronger, more sustainable path.”

Eighty-five percent of voters said a candidate’s plan to address the national debt is a factor in deciding their support in the 2026 election. Seventy-four percent said they would consider supporting a candidate from a political party they do not usually support if that candidate had a clear plan to address the debt.

Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, said the poll’s most important finding is the gap between voter concern and congressional inaction.

“Policymakers face a credibility problem,” she told The Center Square. “Historically, Congress has tended to wait until deadlines become imminent before reaching bipartisan agreement on tough political issues, and the trustees’ projected depletion date increases the pressure to act, but not until 2032.”

A December 2025 Cato Institute survey of 2,000 Americans found 71% favor creating a nonpartisan commission to address Social Security’s funding shortfall.

Shai Akabas, vice president of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, who testified at a Senate Finance Committee hearing this week on Social Security, said the electoral stakes are real.

“The U.S. senators elected this fall will, for the first time, be required to confront Social Security’s insolvency during their term in office,” he said. “That is a new political reality.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said delay makes the problem worse.

“The longer we wait to act, the worse the options become,” Grassley said in a prepared statement at a Senate Finance Committee hearing this week.

The Fiscal Confidence Index has fallen from 42 in April to 36 in May before rising slightly to 39 in June. The survey of 1,001 registered voters was conducted June 15-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.