US Social Security fund exhaustion date unchanged

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Social Security trust fund will be exhausted by 2041 and the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will run out of assets by 2019, the same projected dates as a year ago, trustees for the programs said on Tuesday.

In their annual reports, the trust funds said Medicare hospital fund outlays will exceed tax revenues in 2008 and all future years, while Social Security outlays will exceed tax revenues by 2017.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the funding situation was unsustainable and called for reform.

"The longer we delay, the larger the required adjustments will be and the more heavily the burden of those adjustments will fall on future generations," Paulson said in a statement.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Neil Stempleman)