The first baby boomer started collecting her Social Security October 15th of this year--2007.  The flood gates are now open and some pundits are predicting that the Social Security system will be overwhelmed and broke within 9 years.

 The underlying problem is that birth rates have not been constant.  For a few years following World War II there were more babies; then the birth rates dropped off.  That means there will be a large number of workers retiring and starting to draw their retirement income but there will be fewer workers remaining active and making contributions into Social Security and other retirement systems.  Since the trust fund is not fully funded for those who are now retiring, some of the new money contributed by active workers will be spent before they get to retirement age.

Congress has yet to take up these issues in a meaningful way.  The longer we wait for Congress to act the worse the problem will become.