Social Security

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Wed Feb 09, 2005 8:59 am

Pardon this simpleton. I think I know the answer, but can anyone point me to a report or analysis that discusses the following?

You hear figures like: There used to be 18 workers for every retiree collecting Social Security and soon there will be only two or three per retiree. OK, there will be a lot fewer workers, proportionately, paying in to SS during the retirement years of the boomers. But that means, generally, that the opposite has been true for a couple of generations now: those boomers (and those of us who followed) have been pouring tons of money into social security for the benefit of a lot fewer retirees. If the ratio will be unfavorable 20 years from now, doesn't that suggest the ratio was very favorable the past 40 years, enough to build a surplus?

I know the simple answer: Congress spent that money -- or borrowed it to pay for things like invasions and free health care for themselves. One of the crimes of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton era was how, in the '80s, the social security tax spiked (by about a third?) and, in the '90s, the earnings ceiling jumped every other year, it seemed (coincidentally during my peak earning years, so I could maximize my contributions).

I haven't seen TV coverage of the Social Security issue, but has anyone asked Bush the simple question: Where did all the boomers' money go, and why isn't any of it waiting for them when they retire?

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:12 pm

Hmmmm, watch it get blamed on the Clintons and other "liberals."

Don't count on a straight answer involving math.

mediamongol · **Joined:** Mon Feb 28, 2005 7:31 pm **Posts:** 24

you should check out the unofficial Paul Krugman website:
www.pkarchive.org
There's a link in there to a piece he wrote in the journal Economist's Voice that is a really good primer on the issue

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