CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market Trading After-hours Trading Winners/Losers/Actives Bonds Currencies Commodities World Markets Money Magazine Real Estate Taxes Jobs Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Mutual Funds The Help Desk Loan Center Best Places to Live Ask the Expert Ultimate Guide to Retirement Retirement Calculators Best Funds Best Places to Retire Fortune Brainstorm Tech Apple 2.0 Blog Big Tech Blog Sectors and Stocks Tech Talk Resource Guide Small Business Makeovers Questions & Answers Small Business Video 100 Best Places to Launch FSB 100 Fortune Small Business Fortune 500 Brainstorm Tech Investing Management C-Suite Rankings Main Create Portfolio Edit Portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts

Saving Social Security

The retirement trust fund is projected to run out before the middle of the century. Here's how the presidential candidates plan to keep it alive.

What will Social Security look like when you retire?
What will Social Security look like when you retire?
It may depend on who wins the White House. The next administration will have a big job ahead given that in 2017 the system begins paying out more than it collects in payroll taxes and the famed trust fund is projected to run dry in 2041.

Money Magazine canvassed the leading candidates and found the talking points familiar: mostly "privatization" (allowing workers to divert some Social Security payroll tax to private investment accounts) vs. hiking the wages subject to payroll tax (now $102,000).

But two buzzwords crossed party lines: bipartisan commission. One headed by Alan Greenspan saved Social Security from its last crisis in 1983.

Saving Social Security

Hillary Clinton

Barack Obama

John Edwards

Bill Richardson

Rudy Giuliani

John McCain

Fred Thompson

Mitt Romney

Mike Huckabee
White House hopefuls revive the debate over how to make Social Security solvent. But they favor different approaches. (more)
The presidential front-runners are vying for votes with lots of new ideas, including new incentives to save, invest and buy insurance. (more)
The top White House contenders are a lot richer than the rest of us. But a review of their finances shows they make a lot of the same mistakes we all do. (more)
© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2009 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.