Horizon

Hrmph. Easy for you to say.

Those of us only recently out of our twenties have been told since college not to count on Social Security for much help in retirement at all, and generally believed it. I'm tremendously skeptical of the President's plan — among other things it would lead to a Japan-like entangling of politics and the stock market — but many of the arguments to morality being made by Baby Boomers seem to boil down to "Gimme!"

That Robert Reich commentary link was supposed to be this one. Sorry about that.

If you look at Social Security as an individual retirement plan then yes, you won't be able to count on it forty years from now. But if you accept, even embrace, it as a pay-as-you-go system founded on a compact between generations(as Reich says)then I can guarantee it will be there. I say embrace because there is a moral and emotional aspect to it, as well as practical. You would not let your parents suffer. Your children won't let it happen to you.

Now we can pay for it one way or the other. We can have a government program that recognizes this moral value or we can just do the out of pocket thing. Either way, we pony-up.

It is true that my view must be clouded by my age. But I'm not that close to retirement. What colored my thinking more was my mother's death a few years back. Two things happened: 1) I experienced absolute clarity of mind about my responsibilities as the adult child of a dying parent; and 2) my siblings and I investigated the state of my father's finances and found that while he and my mother had prepared responsibly for old age, without Social Security we'd all be screwed.

As far as the "Gimme!" factor goes I'd say it's true that there will be plenty of baby boomers who won't need that monthly check; yet for a good many people Social Security means not having to take in Mom or Dad when they can no longer pay their own way. So the selfishness charge can stick to either side.

My father turned 87 the other day. He says he's thinking about living to 103. You and I will be paying for this. Thanks. Trust me, he's worth every penny.

My point isn't that social security is a bad thing, just that Gen-Xers aren't going to buy appeals to morality by Baby-Boomers. It smells too much of self-interest — especially when a generation noted (perhaps unfairly) for its self-centeredness suddenly starts talking about morality and responsibility to one's elders.

I suspect that age profoundly affects my viewpoint on this, which is why I found myself yelling at the radio during Reich's commentary. Surely I'm not the only one, though, and this reaction ought to be taken into account if anyone trying to saving the current system would like to appeal to voters under forty.

The compact-between-generations thing is bunk, since the analogy calls to mind a voluntary contract between individuals. Laws never work this way, and characterizing them as such prompts the rather adolescent response "well who asked me?"

In order convince folks of my generation to support the current system, you have to treat it like any other. Medicaid isn't a compact between the catastrophically ill and the healthy: it's a saftey net that I, a healthy professional, can see the possibility of needing someday. The contract analogy leads to all sorts of problems: Why should pedestrians pay for roads? Why should drivers pay for public transport? Why should the childless pay for schools?

The moral-obligation argument works on a few people in some of those cases, but it really doesn't have legs. Taint it with the transparent self-interest of the proponant — especially given the disproportionate burderns due to demographics — and it's doomed to defeat.

My original point, which I guess I strayed from, is that Social Security is not a savings account set up for our grandchildren. It is not a retirement plan in the usual sense. It is a pay as you go system. I raised the moral issue because we currently have two branches of government controlled by people who claim to be guided by their moral sense. I can't think of a better measure of a society's values than the way it takes care of the old folks.

I find the compact analogy useful. You don't. Like most analogies it can be picked apart pretty easily.

Convincing your generation to support the current system may be impossible. You'll have to convince yourselves.

Yesterday's Washington Post has a poorly-headlined article on this subject, with a twenty-something making the moral argument:

I didn't want to stir up a Christmas Eve brawl, but I nonetheless felt compelled to explain that never in my life had I assumed that Social Security was coming to me. Every time I see that somewhat shocking Social Security dollar figure subtracted on my pay stub, I choose to look at it as giving back to my older family members who've been known to drop random checks in the mail to their poor, desperate niece or granddaughter.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the old are not as old as they used to be; or, rather, that the period of life between say 60-75 is not spent being old in the same way that it was half a century ago. When Social Security was established in the 1930s there was an expectation that the recipients would be in preparation for death - a quite reasonable expectation given mortality statistics at the time - and that after a decent but short period of retirement they would remove themselves from the benefit rolls. Now reaching 55 is perceived as getting your second wind; it's time for windsurfing and casino trips, not a respectable dotage in an armchair. Which may make younger contributors ever more suspicious that they are getting fleeced by an indulgent silver-haired set that simply refuses to do the proper thing and expire on time.

the period of life between say 60-75 is not spent being old in the same way that it was half a century ago

Neither is the period after that. I've never seen any real data on this, but I'm pretty sure that people are much more likely to live long after they are either unable to work or unable to live independently. This is obviously a good problem to have, but it will place additional strain on any system.

Anyone interested in the overall demographic questions might be like Philip Longman's excellent essay in Foreign Affairs.

Not people in general, not in the U.S. You mean people of the middle class and upward. It's still true that a lot of poor people are already old in their fifties. Yes, even in California.

Martha, the idea that the American middle-class are not "people in general", but that the poor are, is so loaded with weird baggage that I'm not going to spend time unpacking it here. But to save time, just take it for granted that any generalization I make about Americans in the future includes the unwritten proviso "except, that is, for the bottom and top socioeconomic quintiles."

Here we go again...

Here we go again...

No, not from me this time, at least. I have too much tidying up to do. In fact, I'll ban myself from this thread from this point onwards.

What's wrong, Alan? Getting too old for this stuff?

huh?

- M, having just read the responses to my comment with some confusion.

Found the Longman article interesting, although the comment connecting Vermont’s low birth rate with its electing a socialist congressman and permitting civil unions didn’t strike the quite right tone for me.

The Baby Boomer’s big sin, it appears, was our not making enough babies, but he cites good reasons for that. Of course, when looking at birth rates from the 90’s one finds that your generation isn’t exactly pumping them out either. Interestingly, U.S. birth rates since 1972 have been mainly stable. Shouldn’t that be a good thing?