Social Security cannot afford to pay all of the benefits it has promised. Beginning in 2017, it will run cash deficits that get bigger every year.

Opponents of personal accounts in Social Security often like to point out the fact that Social Security doesn’t just pay for retirement—it also pays survivor’s benefits and disability. This is true. In fact, Social Security has two “trust funds”—one for retirement and survivors’ benefits, and one for disability. When aggregated together, younger workers are revealed to have a larger problem than is generally reported. If one counts the unfunded promises of Social Security’s disability trust fund, the Social Security tax for younger workers would have to double by the time a child born today is in the early years of retirement. Needless to say, this makes the paltry rate of return on Social Security taxation far, far worse than is even projected by PRA supporters. The only way to give younger workers the rate of return they need is through personal accounts.

The system has a problem, and we need to fix it. Personal accounts are the solution.

When Disability Is Factored In, Social Security’s Problems More Acute
Source: The Cato Institute and the 2005 Social Security Actuaries Report
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