Thursday, March 4, 2004
I am quite convinced that should I reach retirement age, I will be forced to both continue working 'till I keel over, face-down in the fryalator, and subsist on dog food. That's the impression one could certainly come away with after reading this George Will op-ed on the future of Social Security.
Entitlement of Silence (washingtonpost.com)
Today there are more than 100 million additional Americans, but there were fewer than 4 million newborns per year throughout the 1990s. In the 1950s the median age for women's first marriages was 20.3. By 2000 it was 25.1. This has meant a decline in fecundity, which affects the wager we have made on Social Security as an intergenerational compact -- children being able and willing to support the elderly.
On Jan. 31, 1940, a check, number 00-000-001, for $22.54 was issued to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vt., making her the first recipient of recurring monthly Social Security payments. Then, in an act of dubious citizenship, she lived to 100, dying in January 1975, having received $22,000 in benefits. That did not matter because in 1940 there were 42 workers for every retiree. Today there are 3.2 to 1. In 2030 there will be 2.2 to 1. Nowadays parents have fewer children than they used to, the children are geographically more dispersed, and their sense of obligation is attenuated by distance and divorce...
Within the past few years, I've been feeling that I've been getting old... I think that might be unusual for someone my age...
Anyway, George Will is a great columnist. And, although I don't know much about this issue, the social security system is probably messed up.
With entitlements, though, it's hard to do anything about them... Once people have gotten the sense of something being an "entitlement," it becomes hard to touch.
It's not so much about the entitlement as about the demagoguery. The current Republican proposal, championed in 2000 by George W. Bush would shift Social Security from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan with defined benefit minimums.
We would still need to come up with some extra money, a couple of trillion in transition costs but that would be a drop in the bucket compared to the 50 some trillion we're short otherwise.
You can argue for or against the Republican plan but the Democrat plan is exactly what George Will says, yell shut up and stick your head in the sand. That 'solution' is just a recipe for disaster.
As one of the 4.3 Million born in 1957 I've never planned on social security being available for me. Any benefit would be a bonus, but I don't expect to receive a dime. If nothing else means testing, and the fact I already receive a federal pension, will mean that any benefits I am eligible for by today's rules will be redistributed to others, by the time I retire.
Solomonia: I am quite convinced that should I reach retirement age, I will be forced to both continue working 'till I keel over, face-down in the fryalator, and subsist on dog food.
George Will: in 1940 there were 42 workers for every retiree
George Will's point was that in 1945, people retired when they were just about to die. The eligibility age for Social Security reflected this reality. Today, people are retiring with another 20 to 30 years of expected life span, statistically-speaking. There is just no way, from an arithmetic standpoint, that taxpayers from 20 to 65 (a 45 year bracket) can support retirees aged 65 to 85 (a 20 year bracket) via a social safety net, given that retirees also need expensive medical care. The problem today is that medical advances have extended retiree lifespan without extending their ability to continue working.