Critics of Social Security, and there’s much to criticize, use the lack of a “lock box” or actual “trust fund” to make their emotional cases for the program’s looming insolvency, reduced benefits, or both. Actually, the total lack of a “lock box” is the surest sign that future retirees needn’t fear reduced benefits or insolvency.
But first, and about what you’re about to read, please don’t construe it as a defense of Social Security. Quite the opposite. How to defend that which shrinks American paychecks over and over again, and in return for the most minuscule of returns? The world, and the U.S. in particular, is awash in remarkably great private sector retirement programs and plans, only for the federal government to force one on us that offers less-than-zero returns? No, this is not a defense of Social Security.
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