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When social security was started 159 people payed into it per recipient. Nowadays it's about 3 people paying in for a single recipient.

It's absolutely tied to population.

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That's a really disingenuous number, most people were not eligible for social security the first few years it was in place, so the worker:beneficiary ratio was very high. The ratio has been pretty stable for 50 years. Its about 3:1 now, it was about 3:1 in 1970 [0][1].

[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons

[1] https://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html

I assume the point is that if (for instance) 3 people today make the equivalent of 159 people in the past, then it still works out. (Whether or not that's true, I don't know.)

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