From the USA Today:
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that a majority of retirees say they expect their current benefits to be cut, a dramatic increase in the number who hold that view. And a record six of 10 non-retirees predict Social Security won't be able to pay them benefits when they stop working.
Skepticism is highest among the youngest workers: Three-fourths of those 18 to 34 don't expect to get a Social Security check when they retire.
I am among those 75% of younger adults who doesn't expect a check. What about you?
Obviously the program is unsustainable as is. Yet we have only 18 congressmen co-sponsoring a bill that simply stops Congress from raiding the 'trust fund'.
They say it's a free country. How about the freedom to voluntarily opt out of the program?
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Comments: 38
If more people realized that Social Security will not be able to guarantee them purchasing power they might agree that cuts need to be made. But I'm not expecting that soon.
That's the problem with programs like this. They have to collapse before people accept reality.
The physical reality (as opposed to the psychological reality) is that there is no reason at all why the elderly 10, 20, or 40 years from now should not have an even better life style than the elderly of today. We increase the productivity of labor every year such that each person can support more dependents than they could have 20 years before. That rate of increase of productivity is far greater than the rate of increase in the proportion of elderly.
Secondly, the elderly are becoming physically and mentally able to continue work into their later years more than ever before. The physical need to retire at 65 or 70 is being reduced by better living conditions.
The psychological reality, however, is that since our money makes us feel like we are each others opponents, enemies, rivals and as a consequence, we feel like money going to SS is money we lose. This is one of the most disheartening aspects of our money. It makes people harm other people for no real reason.
Your second point is very good. Also the average lifespan is increasing , which makes it necessary to move the retirement age further back.
The productivity per hour worked of the labor force is the main number I am concerned with. The GDP or some such figure includes a lot of things that don't strike me as useful. The manufacture of goods per hour worked is increasing due to improvements in technology. This is best illustrated by farm productivity increasing during the 20th century while the number of persons engaged in farm labor dropped greatly. Or by the number of man hours necessary to produce a car or a cell phone.
The improvement in health and mental and physical ability at older ages also encourages us to move the "usual" retirement age back. Why force people to retire when they can still be productive?
But we CAN to the production. We are quite capable of doing it.
Thanks for posting this to 4 US, World News & Opinions.
We need to phase out Social Security and with the tools that are availably in the retirement savings world like the IRA and the 401K's we can begin to do that now.