Reply #55: Depends on your definition of worthless. [View All]

If you mean you can't buy or sell them for money, then yes, they are worthless, because by law you can't.

They are a record keeping mechanism that the government uses to keep track how much money it owes itself for SS. It then spends the money on government programs along with all the other borrowed money. It hasn't had to pay anything back (let alone any interest) because SS has been in surplus, but according to the records, it will pay back over a trillion dollars eventually. In 2018, CBO and SSA project SS will have less income than outlayed. At that point we need to dip into the "trust fund"... or in other words, we need to start paying ourselves back. To do that we either raise taxes, or cut spending, or the economy grows enough and other spending stays flat.