GOPers are frantic to cut Social Security before the truth gets out - that people under 40 are in great shape to collect Social Security.
The GOP wants to seize the moment and kill Social Security. They are hyping the "Ponzi scheme" story line using everyone from big name pundits
......to addled man-in-the-street fuckwits:
Just this week the Wall Street Journal (long a source of right wing editorial nonsense that never hesitates to contradict its own news desk) gave us this dire warning about Social Security:
If you're under 45, you have plenty to worry about.
Well with all due respect (eg -
"Bullshit!"), I disagree.
Because, by 2050, the crisis will in fact largely be resolving all by itself. You see, the Baby Boomers will be dying off rapidly, and the supposedly intractable funding problems facing people under 40 will be revealed as nothing but a mirage. And the GOP is desperate to make changes Now!!! before the public catches on.
America had very high birth rates from the end of WW2 (1946) until the birth control pill became widely available (1965), and that group is the "Baby Boom" shown in orange in the picture below:
The Baby Boom is the demographic goat in the python that is supposed to bankrupt Social Security. The reason this is a looming problem is that the Boomers have started hitting retirement age (1946+65=2011), supposedly at the rate of 10,000 a day.
To see how long the Boomers will live, we can check the Social Security age/survival curves through 2100:
Figure 5—Survival Function for SSA Population for Selected Calendar Years (1900, 1950, 2000, 2050, 2100)
See? That's the Boomers, fourth line from the left and second line from the right, showing mortality of Social Security recipients at year 2050. At 2050, the youngest Boomers will be 85 years old (2050-1965=85) and, according to the survival curves, half of even the youngest boomers will be dead. The oldest boomers will be 104 years old (2050-1946=104) and the number still living will be statistically insignificant. And I think the projected 5% survival at age 100 for the youngest Boomers is probably overly optimistic.
But the lesson is clear - By 2050, most of the Baby Boom will dead. And people who are under 40 should be in great shape to get Social Security benefits.
Fifty percent of the youngest Boomers will be dead at the age of 85, and only a tiny number of the oldest Boomers will still be alive. Year by year, a new group of Boomers will pass their 90th birthday when survival really starts to plummet. After 90, only 25% of the population is alive and the survival curve is pointed almost straight down.
So why is the GOP trying to convince voters in the 30 to 40 year old age group that Social Security won't be around for them? By the time a 30 year old hits retirement age in 2048, the nations population of elderly retirees will be dropping like flies. This great die off will be unprecedented. I can't do the integrals, but something like 15,000 to 20,000 people should be dying every day.
Not only will the number of Social Security recipients be dropping, but we may also be having a labor shortage, so wages and employment are likely to be picking up nicely. It is likely to be an era of prosperity and full employment.
The Republicans are desperate to slash Social Security before the public figures this out, and the big lie is that "Social Security won't be there for today's young people, unless we fix it now!!!" Of course, by "fix" they mean eliminate or privatize it and shovel the money to Wall Street. Because 15,000 people a day will be looking to cash out their retirement accounts, and there's not many 75 year olds gambling with the nest eggs on e-Trade. So Wall Street needs a strategy to claw back that retirement money, and what better way than to try to privatize Social Security? Sure they've tried it before, but they should be more motivated this time.
The Tea Partiers prefer eliminating Social Security because they take exception to very concept of Social Security for ideological reasons. This is of course the Beltway wisdom of Very Serious People at the Washington Post like R.J. Samuelson who is not the least bit shy about saying "Social Security Is Welfare." And of course we can count on talking heads and politicians to carry the message, so that Grandma will vote for someone like cute Paul Ryan to "cut welfare" without realizing Ryan is talking about her.
There is some push back, even from CNN, pointing out that benefits may get trimmed, but there is not need to scrap the system.
The message the public needs to hear is this - If you are 40 there is no "crisis" and Social Security will be there for you.