Defenders of Social Security point out that without it, nearly four million more older Americans would have been counted as poor during 1997. But analysts say that living above the official poverty income level in retirement years is not all that difficult even for those with low incomes during their working years. All an elderly person had to earn in 1997 to be above the poverty threshold for persons 65 or older was $7,698.
To receive that amount of income, all an elderly person had to have at age 67 is $192,450 in government bonds assuming current interest rates nd that the individual’s net worth is protected from the erosion of inflation. To achieve that sum, all a person had to saveand invest from age 22 was an average of $347 a year — ranging from $195 beginning 45 years ago to $498 last year. This means that even low-skilled, minimum wage workers would have to save only 4. 6 percent of their incomes.
Workers earning the median American wage would have to save less than 2 percent of their income — equivalent to nine minutes’ work a day. The problem is that the typical elderly person only had about $106,000 in et worth in 1996, the latest year for which data is available. Without doubt, many of today’s elderly went throughtheir productive years without saving enough, seduced by the prospect that Social Security would provide amply at retirement. In a recent report, the U. S. General Accounting Office warned that the long-term prospects for the Social Security system may be even worse than we think.
It is already well-known that once the baby-boom generation begins to retire in 2010 this will place unprecedented financial ressure on the system. By 2014, current tax revenues will be insufficient to pay current benefits, and by 2029 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted. But demographic factors are accelerating Social Security’s problems. Among the reasons: * Growing life expectancy is increasing the retired population faster than expected. In 1940, a live another 12 years.
Today he can expect to live another 15 years and by 2040 this will rise * The fertility rate is falling faster than expected. In 1960, a typical woman of child-bearing That rate has fallen to just two today and is expected to fall to 1. 9 by 2020. Since we need a fertility rate of 2. 1 just to replace the existing population, we are already in a negative population growth position, meaning * As a consequence of these two trends, the elderly are expected to rise from 12 percent of 2050.
The number of retirees will rise from 34 million to 80 million. The combination of a smaller working-age population and a larger elderly population eans that there will be fewer workers to support each retiree. There were more than five workers for each retiree in 1960. Today will be just two workers to pay all the taxes required to pay the benefits of each retiree. The problem, of course, is that the Social Security system was never pre-funded the way pay-as-you-go system, with each generation of workers paying the benefits of current retirees. working population grows faster than the retired population.
But when the trend reverses, as it simply unsustainable. It is for this reason that growing numbers of analysts favor moving system, by allowing workers to save some of their taxes in a private retirement account. Although a private Social Security system would be easy enough to set up if we were starting now means that the current generation of workers will, in essence, have to pay twice: first for for current retirees. However, some analysts have suggested that a privatized Social Security this dilemma by taking advantage of the higher returns available in the stock market.