Sunday, February 20, 2011

Part of our social security problem

For those who think there's no Social Security problem - the money has been saved for use until 2037 - the logic just fails.
It's a numbers game. There's not enough workers coming into the pipeline to pay for benefits of those retiring. The young won't be able to pay enough taxes to cover the "bonds" that will supposedly be "redeemed" so Social Security can remain solvent for the next 26 years.
Remember the era when Social Security was born. My parents and in-laws were born in that generation - 1935 to 1949.
  • My dad was fifth of seven kids.
  • My mother was third of six kids.
  • My mother-in-law was fourth of six kids.
  • My father-in-law was seventh of 13 kids.
That's lots of kids to pay for Social Security benefits when they grew up. Lots of benefits to be paying out now.
How many people do you know with six kids now? How many with four? Most families are one, two or three.
The shrinkage of family size shouldn't come as a surprise. Why government officials didn't plan for Social Security based on that, we don't know.
Numbers like this show the pension trouble, the Social Security trouble that this country can't avoid. Even if Democrats and President Obama try.

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