Social Security Will Be There For You, Unless You Let Wall Street Take It Away From You

http://verdict.justia.com/2014/07/31/message-young-people-social-security-will-unless-let-wall-street-take-away

Message to Young People: Social Security Will Be There For You, Unless You Let Wall Street Take It Away From You

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Despite all of these facts, of course, the public has been bombarded by a decades-long campaign of misinformation, with conservative politicians claiming that Social Security is “going broke” and that the Baby Boom generation is somehow using Social Security to cheat the generations to follow. This is completely untrue, but the ceaseless blizzard of falsehoods has had an impact, especially in convincing younger people that Social Security is taking their payroll taxes now but will be long gone before they retire.

Therefore, it is important that young people learn the truth, which is that Social Security will be there for them, and it will give them a foundation for living a dignified retirement. It is, of course, always a good idea for each person to save additional amounts for the future, but younger Americans should not fear that they will be denied Social Security benefits when they are ready to retire.

There is, however, a huge caveat to that calming advice. Social Security will be there only if people continue to support it politically. It is essential not to allow anti-government ideologues and Wall Street banks to use their disinformation campaigns (supported and amplified by Republican politicians, as well as many so-called centrist Democrats) to hoodwink young people into harming themselves by abandoning Social Security.

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But what would it mean if the trust fund really did run out of money? Would Social Security then be “bankrupt,” or “flat broke,” or any of the other dire words that politicians use to stoke fear and panic? Hardly. According to the Trustees, at that point the money coming in from payroll taxes would still cover 77% of promised benefits. Moreover, as I described in a Verdict column last summer, benefits are scheduled to increase every year (above inflation), so that even if benefits had to be reduced by 23% in 2034, future retirees would be receiving virtually the same benefits as today’s retirees receive.

What is at stake, therefore, is essentially whether or not post-Baby Boom retirees will receive higher benefits than today’s retirees, not whether future retirees will receive anything at all.

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Even so, many people continue to believe the hype about Social Security’s supposed doom. In part, this is a matter of playing upon people’s cynicism, especially the idea that “the system” in general is rigged against regular people. It also, however, is especially effective because young people seem all too willing to believe that their parents and grandparents are really doing them harm.

And, in a way, who can blame young people for being suspicious? It is certainly true that the older generations have disastrously mismanaged climate policy, with scientists now convinced that environmental disasters will be an inevitable result of our unwillingness to reduce pollution for the last century or so. If parents cannot be trusted to bequeath breathable air and stable coastlines to their kids, why should younger people not imagine that the old folks are being just as irresponsible with Social Security and everything else related to the economy?

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Fortunately, up to this point, the political momentum to abandon Social Security has stalled. Ironically, it is the older generation—which is supposedly so greedy and failing to protect generations to come—that has stood up for Social Security’s future, even though those older people’s benefits are not in jeopardy. It is their children’s and grandchildren’s Social Security benefits that are at risk from this political sleight-of-hand, and it is those future benefits that the defenders of Social Security are protecting.

It is essential, therefore, that young people look beyond the hype and understand that heavily financed politicians are cynically trying to goad young people into destroying every generation’s best hope for a secure retirement. Social Security will still be there for the generations that follow the Baby Boom, but only if we continue to protect it from political assault.