The concept that "By the time you retire, there’ll be nothing
left in the Social Security retirement fund" is actually two
separate arguments, I believe.
One is from the people who favor Social Security reform. For them
the sentence ends "if nothing changes." Plug the numbers into a
spreadsheet and the demographics and finance trends show the fund
coming down to zero. They are arguing against the no-changes
complacency of people on both sides of the political spectrum, the
ones who think it's easier to worry about the problem until after
the next election (always the next election, not the current
legislative session). Obviously it would be a political non-starter
for the social security system to go bankrupt while people are
paying into it, so the problem is going to have to be
addressed. They're just saying the pain of change will be less the
sooner it starts. Increasing the age of mandatory retirement and/or
increasing the proportion of payroll that goes into social security
are the obvious solutions.
The other flavor of this argument is government-can't-do-anything
social darwinism that the Republicans use in every economic debate.
Since government isn't going to accomplish anything, why pay for
it? This also relieves them of responsibility for the poor and
elderly: if the government can't possibly do anything, then there's
no reason for it to try. Extended families can take care of each
other, and devil take the hindmost.
But it's not just about economics. Social Security is a social
contract. People are paying into the system, and they expect to get
paid back, and that means that if the system goes bankrupt, it's
not going to end, it's just going to go into deficit and the
general budget will have to make up the shortfall. The trouble is
that too many politicians have no awareness of the future beyond
the event horizon of their next election. As science fiction fans,
it's our duty to remind them.
But just to be on the safe side, we need to look to our personal
futures as well. People should be saving as much as they can for
retirement. One has to put the better part of a million dollars
aside to have a reasonable lifestyle after one's career.
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