Is Social Security viable into the future?

Question

Will U.S. social security be there for YOU when you retire, or not? Seems everyone expects it to fail, but no one will let politicians change anything about it. So I'm confused. Tell me if I'm wrong.

Answer 1

No, absolutely not viable. The future is coming very soon. On the government ledger sheet social security will show a balance for another 40 years or so.

However, that is counting IOU's, government bonds, what ever fiction you prefer, to indicate money that isn't really there. The "extra" that has been paid in over the years was spent the year it was collected, including the extra they are collecting right now.

In less than 5 years the baby boomers will start to retire en masse. And the although the balance sheet will still be in the black the cost of benefits will exceed current revenue. The choice will be cut benefits or raise taxes.

I hate that all the money I've paid into social security has been wasted but, it is going to be interesting to see what happens then. We'll see if FDR is still a hero.

Answer 2

Social Security is a failure waiting to happen. When FDR established this system back in the 1930s, it was to help elderly people who were affected by the Great Depression and incaptable of working. I think Social Secuity was great for the time was greatly needed and appreciated, but I think a time limit should have been placed on it so that we wouldn't run into the problem that we are currently having.

Social Security is on the brink of failure in the next forty years unless a large amount of that generation that will need to recieve dies for what ever reason that would allow enough money to be supplied by the younger generation. The problem is that is extremely unlikely to happen which takes us back to the problem that we started with. Another problem people are having many less children then that was common years ago which feeds more problems towards the failure of the system. Something else I think we need to change is allowing people to move to other countries and still recieve benefits, because they aren't using that money to benefit the United States's economy. Also, another problem is that we are allowing people to feed into the program for only five years minimum to recieve benefits, which isn't fair, because they would be repping other someone elses money that they paid.

I think what we should do is tell the Americans that they have a personal choice to make. You can either decide that you want to quit the system (even if you have fed into it), or keep feeding into it, and not let new people into it. The people who choose to feeding into it will take the risk of getting the amount of money that is left over. Eventually, with this idea we will be able to depend on ourselves more for our retirement later in life especially with having 401k plans, etc without government intervention.

Answer 3

They have taken money out of social security and used it for other purposes until it is now in danger and will not last. If you want to see America turn into a third world country, just watch what happens when Social security is no longer available. Most elderly with any other income are using all their Social security for health care now. With 11 million illegals and rising, this country is just one more step down the slippery slope. The government prefers to spend 2 billions a week on a useless war.

Answer 4

I do not think it will fail completely. There will be modifications. FDR got it all wrong,he should have made the people working in the 1930s pay for their own retirement instead of the younger generation bankrolling the older ones.