I have been thinking about social security a great deal. Depending on who you ask it is either "in great danger!" or "one of the greatest success of liberalism!" I'm not one to assume that the truth must be half-way in between the greatest extremes. But, when award-winning and respected economic experts paint such different pictures. I'm inclined to put my head down and start studying the matter myself. Of course, those who talk of "great danger" are mostly from the right and those who call it a "great success" are more often from the left, but even that is not an absolute.
I say all of this since I don't know if social security needs to be "saved" I don't know if drastic changes are warranted, but I do want to raise some questions about one of the most often proposed changes: Raising the retirement age.
The idea is that with people working for a few more years and drawing on the system for a few fewer years this will lead to solvency. This idea is sold by pointing out that people live longer than when the program began, and so presumably people can work longer. The greatest critics of Social Security (such as the CATO Institute) do not think that this change alone could solve the problems the see in SS. Those who defend the program think the change is unneeded.
I think that this change (needed or not) is a bad solution since it is inequitable.
- Simply because people live longer doesn't mean they can work longer. Some jobs are more physical and they are often lower paying than desk jobs. The need for retirement has not changed much since the 30s for these types of jobs.
- As it stands social security pays out the greatest benefits to those who live the longest after working for a long time. Wealthier people with longer average life expectancies will draw more years of benefits than poor people who do not live as long. I don't know of a direct way to address this problem, but making the retirement age even higher, when life expectancy gain have been lopsided in favor of the more well-off will only exacerbate this.
- Not all work results in income. Retired people often care for family members participate in their community and politics. The only retired people I know of who are "doing nothing" are so sick that that is all they can do. The rest have taken the opportunity to contribute to their families and communities in creative ways that don't always result in income. I do not believe that people are only valuable and productive citizens if they generate income, and a few years of active retirement can really strengthen a community or a family. In some ways, this is exactly the social capital that poor communities tend to lack, and it is social capital that will be forever out of reach as the retirement age is raised so that those years are always just beyond the reach of the "working stiff" -- "stiff" of course, being slang for a corpse.