Social Security

Table of Contents

Introduction
History and Structure of Social Security
Social Security’s Projected Insolvency
Brief History of the Privatization Debate in the United States
Public Opinion in 2011–15
2016–17 Debate
2025 Onward
Pros
- Pro 1: The current Social Security program will be insolvent by 2035, so a better system is urgently required.
- Pro 2: With private personal accounts, retirees could see higher returns on their investment and more money in their pockets.
- Pro 3: Private accounts would give individuals control over their retirement decisions.
- Pro 4: Individual investment accounts would boost economic growth by injecting money back into the American financial system.
- Pro 5: Being able to invest in one’s own private retirement account would remove the uncertainty that accompanies the current government-controlled program.
- Pro 6: Private retirement accounts would give workers the contractual right to retirement benefits, a right missing from the current Social Security system.
Pro Quotes
Cons
- Con 1: Privatizing Social Security would do nothing to solve its impending insolvency and could actually make it worse.
- Con 2: Private Social Security accounts would undermine the guaranteed retirement income provided by Social Security by putting people’s retirement money at the whim of the stock market.
- Con 3: Privatizing Social Security would dramatically increase the national debt.
- Con 4: Privatizing Social Security would put billions of dollars into the pockets of Wall Street financial services corporations in the form of brokerage and management fees.
- Con 5: Other policy changes could fix Social Security more effectively and less disruptively than privatization.
- Con 6: Many people lack the basic financial literacy to make wise investment decisions on their own, and, if workers had to adopt private accounts, unscrupulous financial advisers could take advantage of novice investors.
Con Quotes
Discussion Questions
Take Action
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