Social Security benefits could lose enough purchasing power to wipe out hundreds of dollars from retirees’ monthly budgets within six years, depending on where recipients live.
A nonpartisan fiscal group just mapped those reductions for retirees across all 50 states, and the dollar amounts are large enough to shape monthly budgets for millions of beneficiaries.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) released a report titled “No State Spared” that models an across-the-board 24% benefit cut triggered by the retirement trust fund’s projected depletion.
In that case, the reductions range from $459 to $556 a month, depending on the state.
The projected reductions would hit hardest in households where Social Security covers most of the monthly budget. The CRFB’s state-level projections show how much each state could lose by late 2032.
Connecticut leads 29 states where average monthly cuts would top $500
The largest dollar-amount reductions cluster in the Northeast, where average monthly Social Security payments tend to run higher than the national figure.
A flat percentage cut, therefore, strips more from each individual check in those states, widening the gap between current benefits and post-insolvency payments.
Connecticut tops the CRFB’s list with a projected monthly loss of $556, followed by New Jersey at $554 and New Hampshire at $553.
Delaware ($549) and Maryland ($541) round out the top five, while Washington, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Utah each face projected reductions of $523 or more.
Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, warned in a statement following the 2026 Trustees Report that years of legislative paralysis have put the program on a path toward automatic reductions that no current proposal in Congress would fully prevent.
<strong>Washington is sleepwalking into a retirement crisis, allowing our nation’s most important trust funds to go insolvent at the expense of over 70 million beneficiaries who count on these programs</strong>
The national average reduction amounts to $500 per month, which exceeds the roughly $461 that the typical retired household spends on food at home in 2026 dollars, the CRFB’s inflation-adjusted calculation based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey.
A cut of that size would force millions of beneficiaries to make immediate trade-offs between groceries, medical costs, and other basic household expenses.
How the One Big Beautiful Bill Act moved Social Security’s deadline forward
The insolvency timeline has been creeping forward in recent years, but the largest single-year acceleration came from a pair of 2025 laws that squeezed the trust fund from both sides, one by raising benefit outlays and the other by reducing revenue.
The Social Security Fairness Act, signed in January 2025, repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO).
The two mechanisms had reduced or eliminated benefits for roughly 3.2 million public-sector retirees whose careers also earned them a government pension. The repeal increased program outlays by an estimated $200 billion over ten years, according to the CRFB.
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Six months later, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed on July 4, 2025, made the 2017 income tax rates permanent and created a temporary $6,000 bonus deduction for Americans 65 and older that stacks on top of the standard deduction through 2028, the Bipartisan Policy Center reported.
Because a share of Social Security’s revenue comes from income taxes retirees pay on their benefits, those changes reduced the money cycling back into the program.
Social Security Administration Chief Actuary Karen Glenn estimated the law would add a net $168.6 billion in combined Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program costs from 2025 through 2034, in a letter to Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden.
That cost estimate moved the projected depletion of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund from the first quarter of 2033 to the fourth quarter of 2032.
The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) 2026 Trustees Report has since confirmed that timeline. It projects that incoming revenue would cover only 78% of scheduled benefits once the reserves are depleted.
The CRFB analysis used the 24% cut from the 2025 Trustees Report, while the 2026 report narrowed the projected shortfall to 22%. The final dollar figure in each state may shift modestly once updated modeling is released.
West Virginia and Mississippi face the deepest economic damage from benefit cuts
When reductions are measured against the size of state economies instead of raw dollar amounts, the hardest-hit states tend to have older populations with lower per-person incomes.
West Virginia leads the nation with projected cuts amounting to 1.9% of state Gross Domestic Product (GDP), followed by Mississippi and Vermont at 1.8% each, according to the CRFB.
South Carolina and Maine follow closely at 1.7%, and the national average sits at 1.1% of GDP, with 40 states projected to see cuts that exceed 1% of GDP.
How to budget for a smaller Social Security check by 2032
The CRFB’s projections put a specific number on a risk retirees can plan around now rather than react to later.
Beneficiaries whose Social Security check covers most of their monthly expenses face the steepest exposure. The Senior Citizens League’s 2026 Senior Survey found 44% of seniors now rely on Social Security for all of their income.
Shannon Benton, executive director of the Senior Citizens League, recommends that current and near-retirees stress-test their budgets against a 22% to 24% benefit reduction.
That means calculating what a $459-to-$556 monthly shortfall would look like in your budget, identifying expenses you could reduce or cover with other income, and using the years ahead to build savings where possible.
A potential benefit cut is not the same as a guaranteed cut. But knowing what a smaller check would mean for your household now can give you more time to adjust before late 2032.
Related: The latest Social Security warning is here; future retirees should pay attention
