Will you receive Social Security checks after you retire?

Olivia Mitchell, a professor of business economics at Wharton, has warned her millennial children, now in their 30s, to lower their expectations about the Social Security checks they'll receive when they retire.

"They're going to have to work longer," Mitchell said. "They're going to have to save more. And they're going to have to expect less from the government. There will be something," she said, but the formula that's in place now won't be the same in the future. 

Time is running out for Congress to solve the massive program's solvency problem. The Social Security trust fund reserves can pay out full benefits for current retirees until about 2033, a year earlier than previously expected, according to the latest calculations by the Congressional Budget Office. If Congress does nothing for the next decade, Social Security will only be able to pay out in benefits what it collects in revenues from payroll taxes, causing steep benefit cuts of about 25%.