Social Security will not be gone, and it is not unsustainable at a macro level. Currently configured, it will pay out ~75% of earned benefits once the trust fund is exhausted in 2034. Several small changes, in concert, remove any insolvency concerns. It keeps 22 million Americans out of poverty [1], and is very efficient in terms of admin costs vs distributed benefits. I posit it's cheaper to keep those benefits recipients out of poverty, versus paying for what happens if they aren't kept out of poverty.
Healthcare? Universal healthcare (Medicare For All), allowing for shedding the current jigsaw of healthcare benefits across the country. Less admin overhead, more care providers. If you're a pension that committed to healthcare expenses (state & local government, and manufacturers), you should be ringing the Medicare For All bell the hardest, to get the necessary infrastructure in place before your shortfalls arrive.
> I would postulate the opposite - I would have thought because we believe that neither companies nor the guvmint would be there to support us, we would have fended for ourselves better (I know that's how I personally took it, and many/most of my friends). But you might be right... sounds like an attitude of "ef it, we're doomed" set in.
Most Americans don't have the discretionary income after mandatory expenses to save to "fend for themselves" due to forty years of wage stagnation. This is why so many must rely on government programs to survive. [2]
[1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-securit... (Social Security Lifts More Americans Above Poverty Than Any Other Program)
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... (For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades)