An Honest Look at Social Security - USA

An Honest Look at Social Security: How Did We Get Here?

By Tom Jacobs
03. 5.2008

First in a three-part series. Read part two here. Part three coming tomorrow.


“If no action is taken, current projections imply that all beneficiaries will have their benefits reduced in 2041, compared to what is promised. The share of scheduled benefits that would be payable would then slowly decline from 75 percent in 2041 to 70 percent in 2081.”
That calculation — which comes directly from the source — clearly contradicts President Bush’s 2005 assertion that the system is headed for “bankruptcy.”


If absolutely nothing is done, Social Security will live on into the final decades of the century, albeit paying less-generous benefits (in inflation-adjusted terms) than current retirees receive.

Then again, these pessimistic projections could be wrong.


This uncertainty has provoked a range of responses from across the ideological spectrum. On the left, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman regularly mocks the “doomsaying about Social Security,” insisting that “the whole Beltway obsession with the fiscal burden of an aging population is misguided.”
On the right, the Heritage Foundation insists we need a radical restructuring of our retirement system, replacing Social Security with a far more limited system in which the government “protects people against unexpected and potentially devastating occurrences rather than providing subsidized retirement income.”


(abridged) SOURCE: millerMccune
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Excellent articles on this contentious issue. The posting above, does not do justice to the article and its author. Please go to source.

This issue should be of interest, not only for Americans, but also other countries that are still debating the issue of: "Who should look after the elderly?"