What are the pros and cons of Social Security?

[Bored]

And what does privatizing social security mean?

Thanks!

[Joe]

Pro: You have a small retirement safety net provided to you automatically.
Con: As the baby boomers age so does the average age of the population so that it becomes harder and harder to support the system and will likely need to be abandoned.

Privatizing basically means ending governmental involvement and just having people provide for their own futures either through specialized companies or by good old fashioned investment.

[Poly_777]

Joe above has crazy comment.
Privatizing Social Security means you loose all your life investments and be pauper at retiring age.
Many lost all life savings in 2008 stock market crash and never recovered.
Stocks they bought for $30.00 is worth now 30 cents.
$100,000 Portfolio i now $5,000.

Social Security is robust program.

[Mike]

I've been paying into SocSec for years and it's an important part of my future retirement plans. The cons are that politicians have been dipping into it for years and leaving IOUs that they now don't want to pay back.

[Heretic]

The pto is that it gives the elderly something to live on, the con is that by giving them something to live on they live longer. Privatizing social security means linking the social security fund to the stock market. This way the elderly can reap the wealth of wall street with their modest contributions. However, when wall street tanked a few years ago , not just large investors lost their money, retirement accounts of all types got literally destroyed. Accounts worth $1,000,000.00 were suddenly worthless! Privatize social security, you risk destroy it and any chance the elderly have of living.

[brenton s]

There are many different privatization plans. You can find them on our site under the alternatives tab, http://www.FixSSNow.Org.

Privatization is a misnomer. Privatization normally means selling the government business to private interests which provide the same service. In DC-world privatization, we are re-writing Social Security from insurance which helps people plan for retirement to a savings vehicle which accumulates wealth. These are very different things.

Insurance manages risk. People couldn't retire at 65 if they thought that they might live to 100. We pool the risk of old-age so that people can buy insurance against living too long. This concept is exactly the same as auto or health insurance.

Savings is like a 401K or IRA which accumulates wealth. Regardless of how much you save, most people couldn't retire for fear of outliving their assets. We don't know how long we will live, so even relatively wealthy people would have to continue working - just in case they lived to 100.

Cons : (1) We can't afford privatizing Social Security, existing payroll taxes do not cover benefits. If we added private accounts, people would have to pay much higher payroll taxes if we pay benefits to existing retirees.

(2) We have plenty of savings accounts. Virtually all Americans have access to some type of private savings account that is infinitely more efficient than something that the govt could do.

(3) There is no private sector old-age insurance

If you have questions, please feel free to email me here or at Joe@FixSSNow.Org.

"Fix Social Security Now" on FB or http://www.FixSSNow.Org