What percentage of seniors support higher taxes to protect Social Security benefits?

According to a Cato Institute/YouGov survey (October 2025), 89% of Americans age 65 and older said current retirees\u2019 benefits should be protected even if it means raising taxes on younger workers.

How do younger Americans feel about Social Security taxes versus benefit cuts?

Much less supportive of tax increases. In the same survey, only 53% of adults under 30 supported protecting current benefits with higher taxes \u2014 47% would rather see benefits cut than face higher taxes on their generation, versus just 6% of adults over 65.

Do young people think Social Security will exist when they retire?

Many doubt it. The survey found only about 34% of Americans under 30 believe Social Security will still exist by the time they retire, despite the program not being at risk of disappearing.

Who conducted this Social Security survey?

The Cato Institute, in partnership with the pollster YouGov, surveyed 2,000 Americans from October 9\u201314, 2025, with a margin of error of about ±2.6 percentage points.

Do Republicans and Democrats agree on how to fix Social Security?

More than the headlines suggest. A National Academy of Social Insurance survey published in January 2025 found more than 3 in 4 Republicans and more than 9 in 10 Democrats prefer raising revenues over cutting benefits, and about two-thirds of Americans favor eliminating the payroll-tax cap so higher earners pay Social Security tax on all their wages. The sharper divide is generational, over who bears broad-based costs.

Does this survey mean my benefits will change?

No. This is a public-opinion survey, not policy. It illustrates the generational disagreement behind the Social Security funding debate, but no benefit or tax change has been enacted.

Survey: Seniors Back Taxes on Young to Save Benefits

89% of Americans 65 and older say current retirees' benefits should be protected even if it means higher taxes on younger workers, a Cato Institute/YouGov survey found — but only 53% of adults under 30 agree. Here's the generational divide behind Social Security's funding debate — and where the parties actually agree.

A large majority of seniors — 89% of Americans age 65 and older — say current retirees' Social Security benefits should be protected even if it means raising taxes on younger workers, according to a Cato Institute/YouGov survey. Younger Americans see it very differently: nearly half of adults under 30 would rather see benefits cut than face higher taxes. The gap reveals a real generational divide behind the "who pays" question that sits at the center of every Social Security fix Congress is debating. Here's what the survey found.

The survey

Cato Institute, working with pollster YouGov, surveyed 2,000 Americans from October 9–14, 2025, with a margin of error of about ±2.6 percentage points. It asked a direct trade-off question: when Social Security's finances need fixing, should current retirees' benefits be protected — even at the cost of higher taxes on younger workers — or should benefits be cut instead?

Support for protecting benefits rises sharply with age

The share who'd protect today's benefit levels, even with higher taxes on younger workers, climbs steadily by generation:

Age group	Support protecting current benefits (higher taxes on younger workers)
Under 30 (Gen Z)	53% would rather cut benefits than raise taxes
30–44	57%
45–54	74%
55–64	84%
65+	89%

Two numbers capture the divide most starkly: 47% of adults under 30 support cutting benefits to avoid higher taxes on their generation, versus just 6% of adults over 65.

Young adults doubt the program will even be there

The skepticism runs deeper than taxes. Only about 34% of Americans under 30 think Social Security will still exist by the time they retire — a striking number, given that the program is not actually at risk of disappearing (see what the 2032 trust-fund date really means).

Where the parties actually agree

The age gap doesn't map neatly onto party lines. A separate national survey — conducted for the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) with AARP funding and published in January 2025 — found that when Americans are asked to choose, more than 3 in 4 Republicans, more than 8 in 10 independents, and more than 9 in 10 Democrats prefer raising revenues over reducing benefits.

The most popular single fix in that survey was making higher earners pay Social Security tax on more of their wages: about 68% favored eliminating the payroll-tax cap entirely, and 65% favored eliminating it on earnings above $400,000 — close to the approach in the Moreno–Warren proposal. Even a gradual across-the-board rate increase (from 6.2% to 7.2% over 20 years) drew support from 65% of Republicans, 68% of independents, and 74% of Democrats. And 83% of Americans called preserving benefits for future generations critical even if it means raising taxes on top earners.

Read together with the age data above, the pattern is consistent: broad-based costs split the generations, but costs aimed at higher earners draw majorities across parties and age groups alike — one reason lifting the cap shows up in so many reform proposals.

Why this matters for any real fix

Every serious Social Security proposal — including the process bills covered in our bipartisan push to fix the shortfall — eventually has to answer the same question this survey asks directly: who bears the cost of closing the gap? Higher payroll taxes fall more on current and future workers; benefit trims and a later retirement age fall more on people closer to or already collecting. The generational split in this survey helps explain why finding bipartisan agreement has proven so difficult — the disagreement isn't only between parties, it's between age groups with very different stakes.

What it means for you

Your benefits are unaffected by any of this today — these are public-opinion findings, not policy. But if you're weighing in on the debate, or just trying to understand why it's stuck, the honest answer is that "who pays" for Social Security's fix is a genuinely contested question across generations, not a settled one. See the full menu of proposals on the table in our bipartisan fix-proposals guide, and check your own numbers with our benefits calculator.

This article is general educational information, not financial or political advice. Age-breakdown figures are from a Cato Institute/YouGov poll conducted October 9–14, 2025 (n=2,000, margin of error ±2.6 points); confirm current details at cato.org. Party-breakdown figures are from the National Academy of Social Insurance's "Social Security at 90" survey report (January 2025). SocialSecurityNews.com is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration, Cato Institute, or any advocacy organization.