The clock continues to tick on Social Security, and reform efforts seem as elusive as ever.

But are the solutions for shoring up the national retirement program really so complex and overwhelming? Maybe not, and to underscore that point a national actuarial organization has encapsulated the scope of Social Security’s difficulties and potential fixes in a cartoon-filled game — an easy crash course on a complicated topic.

The new Social Security Challenge app designed by the American Academy of Actuaries guides online visitors through a virtual town, where discussions among fictional residents at a coffee shop, fitness center, office building and elsewhere briefly illuminate the issues. Some choices are about the basic trade-off between raising taxes or cutting benefits, but the app also sheds light on other issues such as the roles that survivor benefits, inflation calculations and retirement ages play in the debate.

If you haven’t followed Social Security's solvency dilemma much, you also will learn about newer topics such as whether stay-at-home parents should receive Social Security credits even though they didn’t contribute payroll taxes into the system.

The app, at www.actuary.org/socialsecurity, is free and best used on a desktop or laptop computer or a tablet. You can breeze through in 15 minutes or linger longer as you delve into the issues and potential solutions in greater detail.

'The solution is a revolution': Rep. David Schweikert on Medicare, taxes, Social Security

Chipping away at Social Security's deficit

All of these discussion points set up the “challenge” itself, where visitors choose among various options to achieve the funding improvements needed to secure the system’s long-term financial solvency. The questions involve such trade-offs and decisions as:

Should benefits get cut for workers but raised for the oldest retirees to keep them out of poverty?

Are tax increases justified for the highest earners, even if their benefits aren't boosted accordingly?

Should Congress raise the early retirement age to maybe 64 or lift the full retirement age to 68 or 69?

As it stands, Social Security's retirement system faces a looming shortfall under which retiree benefits will see cuts of about 23%, under current actuarial assumptions, if nothing is done over the next decade or so. Some proposed reforms might even add to Social Security’s lingering deficit, as you might discover by playing the challenge.

Plan ahead: Tax refunds are arriving in Arizona. Here's what to do with the money this year

Assessing the many trade-offs in the Social Security system

Visitors can play the challenge several times, experimenting with how much financial progress each solution, separately or in combination with others, would achieve. There are no right or wrong answers. If anything, shoring up Social Security is largely a political debate, which partly explains why solutions to date are elusive.

The various reform proposals, if enacted, wouldn't evenly affect everyone. Elderly pensioners face different problems compared with workers or even new retirees, for example. So, too, for lower-income workers and people who haven't paid into the system, compared with the highest wage earners. The app helps to explain the balancing acts between, say, fully crediting those workers who have contributed the most money through payroll taxes compared with providing additional help to low-income workers, disabled individuals or non-working spouses.

“Satisfying everyone is tricky,” the app notes at one point. However, it also rightly observes that "the sooner a solution is enacted, the sooner the American people can plan for any changes."

Clearing up confusions in the public debate on Social Security

The focal point of the academy's nonpartisan intentions in developing the game is to educate the public about a complex topic. Part of that involves eliminating some of the lingering misconceptions about Social Security and the various reform proposals.

A big one involves the solvency of the system itself.

"What does it mean when you hear Social Security is running out of money?" asked Linda Stone, a pension actuary who explained some of the game's nuances in a press conference call. Even if Congress does nothing to shore up Social Security's finances by around 2034, when the trust fund is projected to run out of its surplus, payroll taxes will still flow into the system, she noted, though not in sufficient amounts to pay all promised benefits.

Another common misconception involves viewing a single solution, such as raising payroll taxes on the rich, as enough to get the job done by itself. "Some combination of changes" likely will have to happen, Stone said.

Reach the writer at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Social Security Challenge game lets public try options to fix system