This has often mistakenly been taken to mean the program will go bust—a fundamental misunderstanding that fueled fears of a full-on collapse in Social Security, according to Jason Fichtner, Ph.D. Read more via Joe Pinsker of The Wall Street Journal. 👇
U.S. workers paid more than $1 trillion into Social Security last year. Younger ones doubt they will get a dime when they retire, Joe Pinsker writes. The idea of Social Security disappearing is one of the country’s longer-running neuroses and shows few signs of abating. Some 47% of U.S. nonretirees believe Social Security won’t be able to pay them benefits when they retire, according to a 2023 Gallup survey, a level that has been mostly steady over more than three decades of polling. Confidence today is lowest among those who are mid-career, ages 30 to 49. The government has warned for decades that Social Security’s trust funds, if combined, are on track to be depleted as the U.S. population ages. This has often mistakenly been taken to mean the program will go bust—a fundamental misunderstanding that fueled fears of a full-on collapse in Social Security, said Jason Fichtner, Ph.D., chief economist at the Bipartisan Policy Center. In fact, the trust funds cover only a portion of benefit payouts. The bulk of the rest is funded by payroll taxes. The likelihood that current workers will get nothing from Social Security is practically nil, said Andrew Biggs, a former Social Security Administration official now at the American Enterprise Institute. “That’s zombie apocalypse kind of stuff,” he said. How much confidence do you have in the future of the Social Security program? 🔗 Read more: https://lnkd.in/gFbVyFbf