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.
Social Security will run out of cash to pay benefits in a decade, and will run out of legal authority to do so a generation later. At that time, benefits will have to be cut by a third or taxes raised by 50% in order to even have the power to pay promised benefits. What if Social Security only paid younger workers what the system could afford to pay? Dual-income, median-earning younger couples could expect to receive far less than a 2% real rate of return on their Social Security taxes. By contrast, over the last decade, bonds have returned 4.5% after inflation—more than twice as much.
Social Security has a problem, and we need to fix it. Personal accounts are the solution.
Social Security’s Payable Benefits Pale In Comparison Even to Bonds
Source: Social Security Administration and Yahoo! Finance