The only real fix to Social Security’s problems? More babies.

The release of the annual Social Security trustees’ report is usually the occasion for some dolorous lament that we have inched another year closer to disaster. This year, however, I have good news! The industrious actuaries at the Social Security Administration, having ground through all the data, now think our nation’s looming entitlement meltdown looks slightly less catastrophic than it did last year.

They now forecast that the combined Social Security Trust Funds won’t be exhausted until 2035, a year later than they expected in 2023. They also see some improvement in the program’s long-term finances, primarily because of more favorable assumptions about productivity growth and disability rates — though that happy news is, they write, “partially offset by a decrease in the assumed long-term total fertility rate,” which has now gone from 2 children per woman to 1.9.