Battleground voters want Social Security fixed, but not with more debt

(The Center Square) – Most voters in five battleground Senate states want lawmakers to fix Social Security before its retirement trust fund is depleted in 2032, but that support softens once specific tax increases or benefit cuts are named.

The survey, conducted for the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation by the Democratic firm Global Strategy Group and the Republican firm North Star Opinion Research, found that 91% of voters called it important for lawmakers to reform Social Security to prevent the automatic 22% benefit cut projected for 2032.

An analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, based on a 24% cut, estimated the reduction would take about $500 a month off the average retiree's check.

Support for specific solutions ran lower: 72% backed raising the payroll tax cap on high earners, 66% supported capping benefits for wealthier retirees, and just 29% supported borrowing to cover the shortfall.

Before the automatic cut was explained to them, 49% of voters said they supported reforming Social Security in the abstract.

Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, said part of that increase reflects an implicit promise that reform would spare people from cuts.

"It may well prevent some or most benefit cuts, but it also likely would lock in some benefit reductions," Biggs told The Center Square. "Everyone is somehow hoping that someone else will pay the bill for Social Security reform."

Biggs said the poll's finding that voters support reducing benefits for the wealthiest retirees is promising, but depends heavily on how "the top" is defined. He has argued for capping benefits at what a typical retiree receives, a proposal he said would spare about half of beneficiaries while cutting deeply at the high end.

"And those people will still complain," he said.

The stakes are clearest in states with competitive Senate races. The senators elected in November will be in office in 2032, when the retirement fund is projected to run short, yet the candidates have offered voters little detail on how they would prevent the cut.

More from this section

Historic tower transformed into $1 million luxury vacation rental

How South Korea is tackling its super-aging problem – and what other aging nations can learn from its experience

Greenland and Antartica lost staggering amount of ice last 50 years

In Ohio, where 88% of voters said lawmakers should talk about the problem more, the two major-party candidates have engaged the issue without committing to a plan to close the shortfall.

Republican Sen. Jon Husted, appointed to the seat in 2025 and running to keep it, has said he wants a bipartisan fix but rejected the most popular option in the poll.

In a June 25 appearance on the "Guy Benson Show," asked about a plan from fellow Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren to lift the payroll tax cap, Husted said he agreed the program should be strengthened but called their approach a "giant tax increase" that is "not the way I'd go about it."

Asked what he would do instead to close the shortfall, his office did not respond.

Democrat Sherrod Brown, who represented Ohio in the Senate until 2025 and is running to return, built his record on protecting and expanding benefits. He co-authored the Social Security Fairness Act, which repealed provisions that reduced payments for some public workers and was signed into law in early 2025.

Asked what he would do to prevent the 2032 cut, his campaign did not offer a plan and instead criticized Husted, saying he "wants to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits that countless Ohio families rely on."

The survey polled 2,500 likely voters, 500 in each of the five states, from Aug. 20 to Aug. 27, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points in each state. The Peterson Foundation, which conducts research on the national debt and long-term fiscal policy, commissioned the poll. Its findings echo a June analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which estimated the impact of a 24% benefit cut based on the 2025 Social Security Trustees' projections. The 2026 trustees report subsequently lowered the projected cut to 22%.

For all the urgency voters express, Biggs said, the poll leaves the hardest question unanswered.

"What we need to know is what people are willing to give up themselves," he said. "So far the answer still seems to be 'not much.'"