I've noticed the sentiment in some countries in southern and southwestern Europe that the working-aged prime earners are being squeezed harder and harder to support the generous benefits received by the retiring and retired.
But the main difference is, since so many people share the same experience (young adult unemployment), it's not looked down socially.
Actually, this kind of phenomenon and the environment it creates (e.g. many people hanging around in evenings, doing a botellón), contributes a lot to how Spanish people and culture is perceived - carefree, "lazy", siesta-loving, night owl.
My point is just that almost the same phenomenon can either be viewed extremely bad, or good.
Although, credit to Germans, at least they're talking about the problem like adults. Mostly. Or moreso than other countries.
That's true, but there are other systems. Japan prints more money. They are the poster child for modern monetary theory.
It's the boomer bulge creating today's issues.
There's no guarantee that it will stabilize and stay constant.
Although I don't usually think of the U.S. as particularly generous to the elderly, social security and Medicare spend ~$2 trillion of the $6.3 trillion federal budget. I've heard complaints that it's squeezing the young too hard to pay for (increasingly longer & sicker) retirement for the old.
I don't understand the alternatives well enough to have a strong personal opinion, though.
A fuller definition would be that Social Security is predicated on a growing working age population.
Which historically, has been a valid assumption.
Increasing revenue (number games aside) would come from productivity gains or additional working population.
Decreasing benefits would come from cutting the payout or increasing qualifying age.
Honestly, taking Medicare out of the picture as a different problem that requires different solutions, Social Security should have been indexed to life expectancy from the beginning. It was never practical to build up a surplus that would be of sufficient magnitude to address demographic imbalances over decades.
Grandfather people in the program into the current rate, apply a sliding scale to people close to retirement (only fair, so their expectations don't drastically change), and make the hard decision.
I'd argue another concern could be useless/harmful interventions. Like taxpayers paying 82k a year per person for Leqembi treatments, which seems useless at best. There are also a lot of interventions that drag on terrible-quality lives in an attempt to forestall death as long as possible; I have personal experience with elderly family members who expressed a preference for death over their treatment plans (but were no longer able to choose). If I retain the ability to choose, I would go to great lengths to avoid some of modern medicine's pallative care.
I don't know. It's all hard. Obviously I want elderly people to be healthy and cared for as much as possible, but not at infinite cost (to the taxpayer or to their own quality of life).
It's complicated enough that including it in any other reform overcomplicates the effort and kills it.
That said, I do think the "death panel" branding from Republicans was extremely intellectually dishonest and in poor taste. Everyone knew exactly what was really being discussed, and to claim mock outrage in front of cameras for political points was dodging the hard question and hurting the country.
US benefits for retirees are quite generous by European standards, which is often surprising to both Americans and Europeans. Americans are consistently messaged to save for their own retirement throughout their lives, which lends to this impression.