SS faces a 24% cut. Now what?

Happy Thursday. Financial plans tend to be as solid as the assumptions underneath them — and right now a few of the most common ones are starting to crack. Today's issue is worth slowing down for.

On The Money Today:

Let's get into it.

The national debt has grown 71% since 2018. Private AI investment has grown more than 700% over the same period. Musk's argument isn't that the debt doesn't matter — it's that AI is the only force moving fast enough to outrun it. Whether that bet pays off before the interest bill does is the question nobody in Washington has a clean answer to.

Keep reading to see where Dalio, Dimon and Musk are moving their money while they wait for the answer.

Musk’s warning isn’t that AI has failed — it’s that the debt is piling up faster than AI and robotics can grow into the gap. Without those technologies reaching full scale fast enough, there’s no escape route. He’s not alone: Dalio is warning of a debt death spiral, Dimon sees a bond crisis coming, and interest payments on the national debt now exceed the entire military budget. They’re not just sounding alarms. They’re moving money into specific places, and those same moves are available to anyone.

Why it matters: The national debt just crossed $40 trillion with no plan in sight, and the dollar has already lost nearly 90% of its purchasing power since 1970. For anyone in or approaching retirement, that’s not an abstraction — it’s what every saved dollar can actually buy when the time comes.

In 48 hours, Trump’s pledge went from every U.S. citizen to adult citizens and back again. The difference could mean thousands for families with kids — but which version stands, and whether any of it ever pays out at all, is still an open question heading into November 3.

Why it matters: Groceries, healthcare, housing — costs keep climbing with no relief in sight, and Social Security faces a projected 24% cut by 2032. For families counting on every dollar, a real $5,000 check per adult would matter. But Trump’s $2,000 tariff dividend never arrived, and only 17% of Americans say he keeps his promises. The article breaks down what’s known about eligibility so far — because Trump hasn’t settled it himself.

63 feels like the sweet spot — young enough to enjoy it, old enough to have built something. But it sits in a gap between Medicare eligibility, full Social Security benefits, and 30 years of expenses that still need funding. The numbers tell a different story than the instinct does.

Why it matters: Social Security’s trust fund is now projected to run dry by 2032, a year earlier than forecast. Anyone planning to retire in their early 60s is walking into a smaller monthly check, a healthcare gap, and a timeline that just got tighter.

The correct answer is D) 88%. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, $100 in 1970 has the same purchasing power as $11.61 today — an 88% decline. That's the backdrop to Musk's warning: it's not just that debt is rising, it's that the currency it's denominated in is quietly losing what it's worth.