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So you're working a 50-hour week and the government is putting 15.3% of your paycheck into a bank account that defies the definition of bank account: no interest, no dividend, you get back less than you put in--and maybe nothing. That's Social Security, and it's about as secure as a hole in your pocket. More people under 35 believe in UFOs than in the chance of seeing benefits when they retire, according to a new poll by the Third Millenium, a group lobbying for reform. The Social Security cookie jar has been emptying steadily since the '50s and '60s, when both premises for the system's success turned out to be false: that people would die soon after retirement and that the birth rate would grow steadily--instead of bulging with the baby boomers and then dropping after 1965. In the late '40s, there were 42 workers paying in for each retiree; now it's just three-to-one; in 2030, it will be two-to-one. Today's retirees are okay. It's 20 years from now, when 78 million boomers are ready to retire, that the numbers stop crunching. The only way out of this is to raise taxes and/or cut benefits, but all that's very unpopular. Younger people are already paying almost double the rate of Social Security tax our parents (and the boomers) did. And older people have put in a lifetime of taxes. No wonder Christian Klein of PAC 20/20, the other main Social Security policy group, calls the system the "biggest pyramid scheme of all time." | |