Why I Worry That Social Security Is Unsustainable in the Long Run
6Visual Description: A woman addresses the camera. She has brown hair worn in second-day curls, and wears purple cat's eye-shaped glasses that help her to see. She's dressed in a dusty red-coloured prairie revival-style dress. There are curtains closed over a window in the background.
Description: I got to thinking about Social Security, and the fact of the matter is that there has to be money going into it for money to come out of it and pay for the people who need it. I am worried that it's unsustainable in the long run. People of my generation are struggling with a cost of living crisis, and putting off starting families. The idea of the American dream is that we want future generations to have a better life, not a worse one. Raising taxes on the remaining workers would further disincentivize having children, as no one wants poverty for their children.
One logical way to continue keeping social security funded would be to expand legal immigration, but I unfortunately don't see that happening. I suspect that the reason that politicians are freaking out about "birth rates" has more to do with social security than racism. If elderly people who have paid into social security all of their lives end up not being able to collect what they were promised, then that could lead to riots or revolution, and politicians want to keep their jobs. So it's in the best interest of politicians to prop up social security by freaking out about the birth rate, rather than questioning whether the system in and of itself is truly sustainable in the long run.