Bygone Age: Old age is changing. So should Social Security.
"If you thought this week's budget fights over Iraq and Katrina were bad, wait till you see the blood bath over retirement benefits. Hurricanes come and go. Iraq can be abandoned. But the debt to retirees increases every decade, and they're a lot harder to abandon. Their clout grows, perversely, in proportion to the burden they impose. In 1945, for every Social Security beneficiary, we had 42 workers paying in. By 2002, we had just 3.3 workers per beneficiary. By 2030, we'll have only 2.2 workers per beneficiary. To keep the system afloat for the next seven decades, its trustees say the Social Security tax rate will have to reach 19 percent. And if life expectancy keeps rising over that period, academics project a tax rate of 27 to 32 percent ..."
Posted by Alan Allport at March 23, 2006 04:40 AM