• Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Social security was designed to be that way, it’s not a secret or anything. It’s how the system was set up and it’s how it is supposed to work. Today’s workers fund today’s retirees.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Except it was built with the assumption that everyone would continue to have 2.5 kids, and skilled immigrants would keep making the US home, and the economy would keep growing and growing forever, and retirees would die off a couple of years after they retired.

      All the base assumptions on which the system were built were shaky. People are having fewer kids, so there’s less money coming in. Retirees are living longer so they need more benefits. People who paid hundreds of thousands into the system during their lifetimes are requiring millions in benefits at the end of their lives. But, people are having fewer kids and so the bottom of the pyramid is shrinking.