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If Congress does nothing to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund, benefits will be cut 21% when the fund is depleted, which could happen as soon as a dozen years from now if not sooner. Pre-retirees born in 1960 face an additional risk due to the complicated formula the Social Security Administration uses to calculate benefits.

The 21% cut would affect retirees already collecting benefits as well as future beneficiaries, according to former Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

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Bernice Napach

Bernice Napach is a senior writer at ThinkAdvisor covering financial markets and asset managers, robo-advisors, college planning and retirement issues. She has worked at Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, Reuters, Investor's Business Daily and The Bond Buyer and has written articles for The New York Times, TheStreet.com, The Star-Ledger, The Record, Variety and Worth magazine. Bernice has a Bachelor of Science in Social Welfare from SUNY at Stony Brook.