If You Need Social Security Checks Three Decades From Now, You Might Be in Trouble

Contrary to what many Democrats say, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office indicates funds for Social Security won't bottom out until 2038 -- nearly three decades from now.

This means that the Social Security Trust Fund might then have to depend solely on payroll taxes to compensate those citizens who've been putting money into the system their whole working lives, and rely on the promised payments.

Of course, this is just a prediction and can be off - the graph above allows for some error. 80 percent of the simulations fall somewhere within the green stripe, meaning some predictions say the money could be available until around 2060 and others say it'll be gone in less than 20 years.

The program will fall short by at least one percent GDP, according to the CBO's presentation below, and that gap would increase over time.