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Comment by ahmeneeroe-v2 | Hacker News Reader

Is that what it actually does today in the US?

For 15% of women and 12% of men Social Security is the only source of cash in old age owing to a number of factors: low-paying jobs, poor saving habits, divorce, caregiving for relatives, medical bankruptcy, etc.

See https://www.aarp.org/social-security/americans-depend-on-soc...

Young people have all those same cash flow issues, but are also our future (if they have kids). In terms of who to subsidize, it should be the youngs, not the olds.

The assumption is that if you’re 25 and you need money you’re likely healthy enough to work 40+ hours a week. Much less likely if you’re 67+.

Does the assumption that hard work = ability to raise a family match the reality of what 20s are experiencing today?

Young people aren't going to be able to afford a child with a couple percent payroll tax cut. They need healthcare, time off of work, and a decent school to send their child to.

Sure, but are you making the argument that we shouldn't do something because in fact we'd also need to do even more too.

Yes do all of those things. Demographics are destiny. We need young people to have kids.

If we cut Social Security young people aren't gonna be able to have children because they're gonna have to spend more time and money taking care of their parents. Social safety nets make it easier for people to live a comfortable life.

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.

>poor people pay to support other poor people

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.

> Let's not make poor youngs (nearly all of them) pay for olds (rich or poor).

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.

Sounds like they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Approximately. The pension payout is disproportionately weighted toward people with low lifetime earnings relative to what they pay into it.

The caveat is that your pension payout reflects lifetime earnings, not your income when you are elderly.

Yes, the poor and elderly in the US overwhelmingly rely on Social Security for their basic needs.

Undoubtedly true. Is it only people who are (poor AND elderly) or are (elderly)?

The fact that the income is guaranteed is an important part of being an effective safety net. Nets with holes in them don't work -- you don't want to create just another retirement plan that can fail and leave grandma homeless. Otherwise you're back to square one with the same problem.

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.

A social safety net that destroys the payors (younger generations) is worthless.

Everything has a cost. The cost of social security outweighs the benefit.

We'd have literally millions of starving and homeless elderly people without social security. Young people are not being destroyed by 6.2% SS taxes.

Something(s) have destroyed young people. It's plain in the birth rates across the western world.

Also SS is 12.4% (employer + employee) and medicare is another 2.9% (employer + employee).

I can tell you one thing for certain, declining birth rates across the entire western world are not due to Social Security and payroll taxes on Americans alone. And the fact that it is happening everywhere, is pretty good evidence that it's not Social Security's fault here.

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.

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