‘Just really shocking’: One of America’s top Social Security advisors is unsettled by how many people are withdrawing early

Martha Shedden has spent 15 years trying to talk Americans out of panicking. Lately, she says, it’s a losing battle. She co-founded the National Association of Registered Social Security Analysts (NARSA), the organization that trains and certifies financial professionals as Registered Social Security Analysts, or RSSAs. In an interview with Fortune, she described a pattern she’s watching play out across the country: retirees and near-retirees, spooked by headlines about the program’s finances, are claiming benefits at 62 — the earliest possible age — even when waiting would leave them better off. “They hear their benefits might be cut 22%, and they’re thinking, ‘I need my money now,'” Shedden said. “That was just really shocking. I mean, I knew people were doing that, but that [number] was very, very surprising.” The behavior shows up starkly in a survey NARSA conducted of 189 RSSAs in August, which asked advisors what they’re hearing directly from clients. Nearly three-quarters — 73.5% — said their clients want to claim early specifically because they fear future benefit cuts. Almost 59% said clients simply doubt Congress will act to fix the program’s finances. And when advisors were asked to describe the dominant mindset among clients weighing when to claim, 62.4% said people feel “overwhelmed by conflicting advice.” The 22% problem Social Security’s retirement trust fund is on track to run dry in the fourth quarter of 2032 — one quarter sooner than last year’s estimate — according to the program’s 2026 Trustees Report. After that point, the law requires an automatic, across-the-board benefit cut because the trust fund can no longer make up the gap between what workers pay in and what retirees are owed. Absent congressional action, the cut would be roughly 22%. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has translated that into household terms: a typical dual-income couple retiring right after insolvency would lose an estimated $16,900 a year in benefits. A single-earner couple would lose about $12,700 annually, and higher-income couples could see cuts as steep as $22,300 a year. Lawmakers are aware of the clock. On August 5, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing — “Exploring Process Approaches for Addressing Social Security Solvency” — with testimony from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Mercatus Center, AARP and the National Academy of Social Insurance. The session grew heated, with Democrats accusing Republicans of maneuvering toward benefit cuts through a fast-tracked process, and Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana visibly frustrated by the gridlock. That combination — a hard deadline six years out and a Congress that can’t agree on next steps — is precisely what Shedden says is pushing clients toward the exits early, even though claiming at 62 locks in a permanently smaller monthly check for life. “It’s a very emotional decision,” she said of the rush to claim early. “It comes down to the education and the knowledge so that they’re able to make their best claiming decisions.” Beyond the claiming age The survey also surfaced a broader knowledge gap. Fifty-eight percent of advisors said clients don’t realize ex-spousal or ex-survivor benefits may be available to them after a divorce, and a similar share said clients simply confuse spousal and survivor benefits altogether. On taxation, only about a third of clients understand how other income affects the taxability of their Social Security check, and nearly half are blindsided to learn that Medicare premiums can quietly shrink their monthly payment. Roughly two-thirds of advisors said income-related monthly adjustment amount deductions were the top reason clients were surprised by a lower-than-expected payment. These knowledge gaps are what NARSA exists to close. The credentialing process took a step up this summer: as of late July, the RSSA final certification exam is now administered and proctored by the College for Financial Planning, a Kaplan company, using live online proctoring. Shedden called it a “big step” for an organization she says has grown steadily over the past two years as more financial, tax and insurance professionals seek to specialize in Social Security guidance. Don’t blame the boomers? Shedden, who describes herself as squarely in the middle of the baby boom generation, pushed back hard against the increasingly common argument that her cohort is responsible for the program’s shortfall — both by its sheer size and by allegedly hoarding wealth and political power while presiding over the system’s decline. “I don’t feel that it’s particularly our generation, the baby boomers,” she said. “Yes, we are a huge bubble, but there are so many other socioeconomic factors.” The numbers back up at least part of her case. When Social Security began paying benefits, there were roughly 40 workers for every retiree collecting them, according to Mercatus Center data. That ratio has collapsed steadily since — not because boomers didn’t pay in, but because Americans are having far fewer children. The average number of children born to a woman was 3.6 around the end of the baby boom in 1960; by 2024, it had fallen to 1.6, according to the Peterson Foundation. The ratio of workers to beneficiaries, which stood at 8.8-to-1 in 1955, had dropped to 3-to-1 by 2025 — and continues to fall. The data critics cite point the other direction. The CRFB calculated earlier this month that baby boomers are on track to collect roughly 265% of what they paid into the program over their working lives — a return ratio that reflects both the program’s structure and decades of benefit expansions that earlier generations supported and current workers are now financing. “It has always been a pay-as-you-go system,” Shedden countered. “So, that’s always been the program from the beginning. The problem is the longer longevity, the longevity of individuals who are in retirement.” She also named a second culprit rarely discussed in the generational-blame framing: the disappearance of employer pensions. Roughly 40% of private-sector workers had access to a defined-benefit pension in the 1970s, she said; today it’s closer to 15%, leaving 401(k)s and IRAs — vehicles retirees must manage themselves — to fill a gap they were never fully designed to cover. “All of us should be saving as much as we can,” Shedden said. “Social Security was never meant to be a 100% replacement of all our income. The critical thing is for individuals to plan, not to panic.” An optimist, for now Despite the doom-laden headlines, Shedden insists she remains confident Congress can still act. She pointed to the array of available fixes — adjusting the taxable-earnings cap, changing the benefit formula, altering the retirement age — arguing that no single lever needs to move dramatically if lawmakers combine several modest changes. She also rejected proposals floated inside the Trump administration to eventually replace Social Security with a different savings vehicle, sometimes described as “Trump accounts.” A full replacement of Social Security would be “a huge, huge mistake” that would trigger public backlash, she said. “There would be an uproar.” Still, she was careful to separate her optimism about the program’s survival from complacency about the choices facing Gen X and millennials now approaching retirement.”They should be informed and concerned,” she said, “and be planning for it.” For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.