"Social security" including actual Social Security, Medicare, etc is a wealth transfer from the poorest Americans (young people) to the richest Americans (old people).
The demographic issues are a consequence of political choices, e.g. the way we prevent working age people from coming to this country to pay into the system. (and now, kick some of them out).. but also, the ways that choose not to enable families to comfortably have children.
I don't know what "proof" you have but remember that the economic impacts of demographic shifts are pretty broad, so I would suggest you validate that your source is taking that into account, and isn't intentionally biased for political reasons. The overwhelmingly predominant economic opinion is that immigration is very valuable in growing a country's wealth.
They can pay everyone $2000 a month, if a loaf of bread is $2000 if you catch my drift.
It's got to go. It's a shame people were lied to but the reality is we can't keep things the way they are.
But right now it's exactly the opposite: the dependency ratio is cratering, people can live on SS for decades, and the Boomers are hugely rich while their grandchildren can't afford a house. We desperately need to completely invert Social Security and instead have massive wealth transfers from the old to the young. But that's politically quite impossible, so this perverse situation remains.
Free public schooling through 12th grade is one such transfer.
Boomers might have a bunch of wealth on paper when you count the value of their deferred-maintenance post-war home, and their 401k that is invested in a tech bubble -- but if their home burns down and the markets crash, even 'rich' boomers need a rent check on the first of the month.
Not to mention, that means testing also places burdens on the poorest among us that can be insurmountable for some.
A social safety net that doesn't catch these people is worthless, as it fails the entire point of having one instead of relying on private retirements.
Everything has a cost. The cost of social security outweighs the benefit.
Also SS is 12.4% (employer + employee) and medicare is another 2.9% (employer + employee).
There's a lot of research out there that answers that question. There are many reasons for declining birth rates, and those include cultural changes, changes an expectations of the standard of living, changes in family planning priorities.
If you really want to know the true answer to this, you don't need to ask a tax advisor or a politician, you need to ask a sociologist.
See https://www.aarp.org/social-security/americans-depend-on-soc...
Yes do all of those things. Demographics are destiny. We need young people to have kids.
Social Security would be completely solvent if we didn't make poor people pay to support other poor people, and instead tax rich people for it. It's built on a regressive tax, and the wealthy don't pay jack shit.
So we actually agree. Let's not make poor youngs (nearly all of them) pay for olds (rich or poor).
I think we should eliminate this sub-optimal situation immediately based on the harm to the payors.
The problem is, this implies that whatever system you're advocating for must force people to prove that they're poor. These requirements don't come out of the sky and get magically enacted by some fairy, they're gonna be an active by bureaucratic process. That's a non-starter because then the system isn't universal anymore. It only serves people that are able to reach that bar. The poorest and most destitute among us, lack the ability to produce documentation. Many are disabled, uneducated, destitute, have dementia, or any number of other problems that affect the people who need help the most.
It should be easy for anyone who's paid into Social Security to get their benefits back out of Social Security. They shouldn't need to prove anything else.
The easiest situation is to just force people who make more than $176,100 to pay their fair share.
The caveat is that your pension payout reflects lifetime earnings, not your income when you are elderly.