ALBANY COUNTY — As Social Security marks its 90th anniversary, AARP is holding a series of pop-up pizza parties to rally support for the program.

A gathering, with free pizza, was held on Monday, Aug. 11, at Golden Grain Pizza on Wolf Road in Colonie.

Robyn Haberman, associate state director for Community Engagement at AARP-NY, called the pizza “a metaphor for the fact we’ve all earned our slice of Social Security.”

Posters in the pizzeria’s parking lot declared, “Protect the Pie.”

On Aug. 14, 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program into law. The program, administered by the Social Security Administration, now covers 94 percent of the people in paid employment in the United States.

The Internal Revenue Service collects Social Security payroll taxes to be placed in one of two trust funds. Although Social Security revenues exceeded expenditures until 2009, recent retirements of baby-boomers are lowering balances and it has been predicted that trust fund reserves will be depleted in the next decade unless there are legislative changes.

Haberman said a recent AARP survey found that consumer confidence in Social Security is dropping, from 43 percent in 2020 to 36 percent today.

“The lowest level yet,” said Haberman, is that 25 percent of young people, ages 18 to 49, think that Social Security will not be there for them when they retire.

“We’re trying to change that narrative,” said Haberman, who went on to cite statistics for Albany County where more than 64,670 residents receive Social Security, contributing $1.5 billion to the local economy each year.

Most beneficiaries are retired workers, but the program also supports people with disabilities, children, and surviving family members.

“This is a safety net … This is an earned benefit,” said Congressman Paul Tonko, a Democrat representing the Capital Region.

Tonko said, for some of his constituents, a Social Security check is the only support they have since many companies now lack pension plans.

Fourteen percent of Americans 65 and older rely on the program for most of their income, while 40 percent depend on it for more than half, according to AARP, which originally stood for the American Association of Retired Persons. The group changed its name to just the acronym AARP since many of its members continue to work part- or full-time.

Referring to President Donald Trump’s reconciliation bill, Tonko said the “Big Betrayal Bill” has “a door opening to privatization” for Social Security.

Tonko urged preserving the current program, telling those at the gathering, “Let’s get out there and do battle for this.”