An entitlement in the jargon of government is "a federal program, or provision of law that requires payments [to anyone] who meets the criteria". Under this definition Social Security, government pensions and veterans benefits are all entitlements. Other programs that require a specific Congressional appropriation of funds are called "discretionary". With discretionary programs a perfectly legal program can be effectively nullified if Congress defunds it, not so with entitlements.
So all those Facebook memes that you see raging about how your Social Security isn't an entitlement are not accurate. "Entitlement" isn't a slur. It means, by law, if you meet the criteria, the government has to give it to you.
The other misconception that many people harbor is that Social Security is "their" money and that they "paid into it" for their whole working life. That there is a "Trust Fund" that holds all of your accumulated "payments".
It's true that the more that you earn in your working life, the more that you will be able to receive in Social Security benefits, but you are no means guaranteed to receive everything that you "paid in" nor are you limited by that amount. You could conceivably die before reaching retirement age, or you could live for another 35 years after retiring. You are guaranteed, upon retirement, a certain monthly benefit until you die. But it will be limited according to how much outside income you earn or when you retire; neither of these have any connection to what you "paid in".
The Social Security Trust Fund does not exist like a giant bank account for all present and future Social Security recipients. Social Security is, and always has been, a pay-as-you-go program. The payroll taxes that current workers have deducted from their paychecks are used to pay the current retirees. Notice that I used the term "taxes". It's not your money, it's a tax that you pay that is used to fund the current expenses (retiree benefits). Tomorrow's workers will pay for tomorrow's retirees. So what is the Social Security Trust Fund? Every year (until 2018) the total of all payroll taxes exceeded the total of all benefits paid out. The surplus was by law, invested in Treasury Securities, not kept as cash in a government bank account.
(Why not a cash account? Several reasons. One, if the general fund budget is running a deficit, it will have to borrow money from somewhere to make up the difference. Better to borrow from itself, then have our debt held by foreign banks. Second, due to inflation, the value of the dollars in the trust fund, if they remained as cash, would decrease. The general fund pays into the trust fund interest on the treasury securities. )
This may be the source of the myth that various administrations "raided" or stole money from the trust fund. This is not true. The decision to run a deficit is unconnected to the availability of a "loan" from the Social Security Trust Fund. This shortfall would have been made up by issuing bonds or securities in any event.
A few paragraphs up I mentioned that until 2018 more was coming in than going out. So what's happening now? In the short term, the interest payments make up the difference, but each year the deficit between income and benefits will get wider. At some point, if the payroll tax and benefits both remain the same, the general fund will need to allocate funds to redeem the Treasury Securities held by the trust fund. It is estimated that by 2034 even the trust fund will be depleted. At that point it is further estimated that, if nothing else changes, the income from payroll taxes will be able to cover about 70% of benefits.
Nothing about what I have explained precludes the government from making changes to Social Security. In order to forestall the depletion of the trust fund they could scale back cost-of-living increases, they could raise the cap (income over around $130,000 is not subject to payroll tax), or raise the retirement age. They could lower the threshold upon which you start paying taxes on Social Security benefits, or lower the amount of outside income that you can earn before having your benefits lowered. In all likelihood any changes will affect future beneficiaries, not current ones.
Whatever happens, do some research and stop getting your information from Facebook memes
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