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 dismissively talk about raising Social Security taxes on younger workers as if no one would notice. What these reactive guardians of demographic denial fail to see, though, is that Social Security taxes today are 160 times what workers in 1937 were paying. By 2017, when Social Security will no longer be collecting enough money to pay benefits, taxes will be 300 times what workers were paying in the 1930s. Clearly, raising taxes on already-overburdened younger workers is not a smart way to fix Social Security. Personal accounts that younger workers could own and control are a far better solution.
Social Security has a problem, and we need to fix it. Personal accounts are the solution.
Social Security Taxes at Crisis Stage 300 Times What They Were in the 1930s
Social Security Administration