Social security is an insurance plan against old age (along with many other issues that could make a person unable to work and provide for themselves and their families). When it started, it had the best of intentions, but politicians saw an opportunity to corrupt it and to use it for their own political/personal gain. With great surpluses to begin with (naturally; everybody is supposed to pay into the program for at least 10 years before beginning to draw out of it, so there should always be a large surplus), they began to “borrow” from it as zero percent interest to pay for their political gain.

Now, as people retire, they are fully dependent upon the next generations’ contribution to make promised payments to those who paid their dues for many years; the beneficiaries of those insurance plans. Those funds that the current work force contribute already allocated. Rather than building reserves for those still working, the reserves are shrinking to unmanageable lows. With population growth slowing to a negative number (barring large scale immigration), there won’t be as high a ratio of workers to Social Security beneficiaries to continue the original or even the modified insurance plan.

The money would have run out much sooner if they hadn’t made a plan to phase in an increase in the retirement/collection dates and if they didn’t reduce the percentage of the expected payouts promised to the purchaser/beneficiary of the policy. Even after the changes made to the plan, the money currently coming in from new workers policyholders was expected to be enough to pay current commitments only until 2032ish before it would need to be subsidized or a new change would need to be foisted upon the policy holders. Now, because of lockdowns, that expected tipping point has changed to 2029. At that time they will be able to pay approximately 70ish percent of what they owe.

Decades ago there was a group of people who started sounding the alarm bells that this was coming, yet the politicians decided to “kick that can down the road”, because it wasn’t an issue that would benefit their careers.

When the alarms kept sounding, proposals were made to privatize the fund (taking it out of the reach of politicians). This solution bore the same risks as the common investor faces. The market could crash and all the invested funds were at risk.

Next came a more popular proposal: putting the funds in the hands of the individual. The only problem with that is that they had waited too long to start phasing that in. It would be necessary to continue paying the current beneficiaries until their deaths out of those funds, so only a small portion could go to the current workforce’s personal accounts. Many people would still choose the idea of a reduced percentage of the funds under their own management rather than counting on the integrity of politicians to leave the money alone, but this didn’t gain enough support to even be seriously considered. Many of the politicians claimed that the people would just lose the money and have nothing to support themselves and they would become wards of the state. (Big brother knows best).

In my family, my mother is still living. She worked hard to support herself after most of her children had left home even working 2 jobs at a time (one paying less than minimum wage and the other paying minimum wage.). Her health (emotional and physical) suffered, but she had kept her eye on that goal of age 62 retirement. When she retired, she took home a whopping less than $400/month.

This was (barely) enough at the time, because (as a single mother raising 4 kids after my father left) she had learned to survive on very little and because she learned the value of staying out of debt and putting away a little money for the future. As inflation are away at her spending power and her savings dwindled, her two sons and their families (who had learned the same lessons on money management and who had purchased and paid off their own modest homes) purchased a cheap, dilapidated house; gutted and remodeled it and made it a safe place for her to live. They moved her from the rundown apartment that had become unsafe into that home and she lives a happy, healthy life there.

As an 83 y/o woman she is healthier/happier now than when she was working. Her Social Security check has gone up to closer to $450/month and that covers her expenses for food, utilities, transportation and medication. When it no longer covers her expenses, her sons will pick up the tab as it is their responsibility. (In our family, we understand that the first responsibility goes to the individual, then to the family, then to the church. We don’t believe the government is responsible for providing a living other than what they manage of what the the taxpayer paid for their insurance program (i.e. Social Security).

Along those lines, our sisters struggled to do more than support themselves and their children after their marriages failed. They too are the first to be responsible for themselves. Then the responsibility falls to their their family (their child). If they should need help beyond that, their brothers will have to find a way to support them as well. (After her brothers die, one of them would be able to fall back on the church to help with those emergencies she can’t cover. The other hates God and the church, so she’ll have to rely on other means (maybe in our will) or our children.

This is not just our idea, it is biblical, so it is right.

15 Trillion is a drop in the bucket when it comes to Government spending!!!!!!
Not only that, but, Social Security would be financially independent if THEY would stop using that money for purposes never intended!!!!!!