I was looking through some old columns of mine and I found one from about 15 years ago with an intriguing headline: “Little Green Martians and Social Security.” I wrote that column in reaction to a news story that was running in media outlets around the country based on a poll of young people that asked a question that went something like this: “Do you believe you will have a better chance of seeing a Social Security check someday or of seeing Martians land on Earth?” And guess what? Most people answered that they figured they'd be more likely to see little green men from outer space than their promised Social Security benefits.
I wasn’t surprised by those poll results. I’ve been listening to Social Security skeptics for a half-century. I remember way back in 1973 when I was sent out as a relatively new Social Security Administration spokesperson to deliver my first speech on the topic. Hardly before I had a chance to introduce myself, some guy in the audience who appeared to be around 40 years old jumped up and said: “I don’t know why we should listen to anything you have to say. We all know Social Security will go belly up long before we ever have a chance to collect a dime out of the system!”
Well, of course, if that guy is still alive, he'd be pushing 90 now and will have been collecting many millions of dimes in the form of Social Security checks, month in and month out, for about 30 years now. I’ve often wondered if he ever looked back and regretted his rude interruption of that neophyte Social Security rep’s maiden Social Security presentation. At least I hope he accepted the fact that he was wrong.
And that story always reminds me of something I learned from one of my mentors when I started working for the Social Security Administration. He was a fairly high-placed official within the agency who started working for the SSA shortly after it was created in 1936. And he told me that way back then, many members of the public were telling him that the Social Security program was doomed to failure.
Well, those doomsayers in 1936 were wrong about the future of Social Security. And that rude audience member who interrupted me in 1973 was wrong about the future of Social Security. And those poll respondents from about 20 years ago who said they‘d see Martians from space before they’d see Social Security benefits were wrong about the future of Social Security. And so too are the people I still hear from today who tell me that Social Security is destined to fail.
I mean, come one folks! The Social Security program is almost 90 years old now. It has been paying monthly benefits over those years without fail to hundreds of millions of people. How long must the program be around before people accept the fact that it is here to stay?
But of course, I’m not naïve. I know what fuels people’s recent skepticism about the future of the program. You can hardly go a week without seeing some newspaper report or some internet story predicting Social Security’s demise.
Some of the headlines like this one: “Social Security going broke in 2034” are just outright false. Some of the headlines like this one: “Social Security benefits to be cut 20 percent in 2034” are misleading. And of course, none of the headlines tell the whole story.
If you go beyond the headlines and read the rest of the story, you will see a statement similar to this one: “By 2034, Social Security will only have enough cash reserves to pay 80 percent of promised benefits IF NO CHANGES ARE MADE TO THE SYSTEM BY THEN.”
I added the emphasis to the “if no changes are made” part of that sentence because it is the key. The Social Security program will never reach the point where future benefits will have to be cut by 20 percent because there is absolutely no question that the system will be reformed before we reach the 2034 crunch date.
How do I know that? Well, for one thing, it’s just common sense. No member of Congress, no president, no government official is going to let the Social Security program go belly up. You can be as cynical as you want about the state of politics and about the lack of bipartisanship in our country today.
But I can assure you that no politician is going to say to their elderly constituents: “Sorry, Grandma, because I’m bickering with my colleagues across the aisle and can’t get anything done, I’m going to just forget about reforming Social Security and cut your Social Security checks by 20 percent!” (OK, maybe there are a few rogue members of Congress out there who might say that. But certainly nowhere near a majority.
How else do I know that Social Security will not go belly up by 2034? Well, history is on my side. Throughout its history, the program has been reformed many times to keep it relevant and to keep it financially secure. The last time that happened in a big way was the early 1980s. At that point, the Social Security system was about five years away from going in the red.
Back then, President Ronald Reagan appointed the National Commission on Social Security Reform, made up of a bipartisan coalition of senators, members of Congress, and other experts. They proposed, and Congress eventually passed, a series of relatively modest tax increases and benefit cuts that kept the system solvent for the next 50 years.
And that’s what’s going to happen again. I’m betting there will be another commission established that will suggest relatively modest reforms that will keep the program solvent for the next half-century.
Before I close, I must make this point. I get dozens of emails from readers who tell me that the aforementioned Social Security headlines scare them, so they are choosing to take early (and reduced) benefits now so that they can get “grandfathered in” to the current system before benefits are cut.
My advice to them is always the same: DO NOT make Social Security decisions based on politics. Make decisions based on your own personal economic situation. And I say that because I can guarantee that you will have a better chance of seeing little green men from outer space than you will of seeing the Social Security program go belly up now or anytime in the future.
