Social Security: Feeding on America’s Youth

In a short, but powerful piece, “Watching Social Security Eat the Young Alive”, a father writes about his concern for his son’s future and the mess that has been made of Social Security.

In the article, Bill Frezza tells us of a letter his 26 year old son receives from the Social Security Administration.

“The two-page pamphlet entitled “What young workers should know about Social Security and saving” reminds us that 50 million, or one in six, Americans will collect more than $614 Billion dollars in Social Security benefits this year. It informs young people that the Security Taxes they now pay go into a “Trust Fund” that is used to pay current beneficiaries. Paying off early investors with funds taken from later investors is precisely how Wikipedia defines a Ponzi scheme. The pamphlet advises that the Social Security Board of Trustees estimates that the “Trust Fund” will be depleted before my son’s 54th birthday.”

The pamphlet goes on to provide a formula young taxpayers should use to calculate how much money they need to save each month to prepare for retirement — aside from the taxes they’re already paying into a system they will never benefit from, of course.

This is outrageous, ridiculous and tragic all wrapped into one nice, neat package. As someone who graduated from college in a post 9-11 world, I can attest to the difficulty my peers and I had finding jobs after graduation. Many opted to go to grad school in the wake of financial firms and other businesses cancelling employment offers to new grads. Armed with a great education and a boat-load of debt, we entered the workforce between 2004 and the present — only to face the same unstable job market once again.

Eventually, necessity rules the day, and everyone finds something — even if it isn’t the dream job you might have envisioned. And, we begin to fulfill our duty to pay taxes, including Social Security, which we’re now told will most certainly be depleted by the time we reach the ripe old age of retirement.

Frezza asks “why do kids put up with this?” With young people voting overwhelmingly for Barack Obama and the Democrat party in last year’s election, the question arises, what will it take for young people to stop voting for politicians that “promis[e] to stick them with the bill for an ever-expanding menu of unfunded middle class entitlements?”

Frezza wonders if his generation raised their kids to float through life, believing that they would always have enough, because that’s been their experience thus far. Rather than stand up to a government that wants to take more and more of their personal earnings to fund new entitlement programs, they accept it. Perhaps it’s because they can’t think for themselves as Frezza posits. Perhaps others live with it because they don’t believe they have the power to change anything.

But with government mandated health care on the horizon along with government efforts to control private business and individuals through environmental regulations, cap-and-trade and increasing the power of unions, it’s time for young people to become aware that they (literally) cannot afford to ignore these political issues.

Tags: government entitlements, Social Security