No. of Recommendations: 4
is it ethical to advocate for more people so they can take care of us?
Parents demanding daughter or daughter-in-law being baby factories so parents can be grandparents?
Seriously, though, through most of human history, family has taken care of family across generations. There were a few exceptions, like some societies would put those so old they could no longer contribute to survival of the group, but were net drains on group survival, out on ice flows to die. Those were rare.
Taking care of family across generations: parents lived with their children, including when those children had their own children still growing up, or those (grand)parents lived very nearby. That had value for the younger generations, too, as the old folks could pass their experiences and wisdom on to the grandkids. In that environment, Social Security, to get more specific, was set up in its original form to supplement that family support, not to financially replace it. At that time, too, there were roughly 7 workers for every retiree, and retirees, once retired had a life expectancy of roughly 7-10 years. Social Security today has transformed into what's intended to be financial replacement of that family support, however meager that replacement income might be; there are 2-3 workers for every retiree; and a retiree's life expectancy in retirement has lengthened to more than 15 years. On top of that, today's retiree no longer lives close by family nearly as much.
Adding to that is Social Security's core structure, unchanged since its inception: the revenue from Social Security taxes is paid out immediately to current retirees wholly unrelated to the taxpayer's family. With no skin in the game--those taxes set aside for the payer's own future retirement--there's little incentive for the taxpayer to save for his own retirement, a situation exacerbated by the erstwhile economic environment of employers setting aside money for an employee's future retirement in the form of a defined benefit pension. Somebody else would always provide for the one's retirement.
The falling ratio of workers:retirees has led to Social Security tax revenue no longer being enough to keep the basic funding--the Social Security Trust Fund from which those payouts are made--fully funded. When it's drained, the payouts can only come from the revenue stream, and that will lead, at today's rates, to a roughly 25% drop in monthly payout size.
Absent an increase in birth rate, the only source for more workers is entry by legal immigrants--which we've always welcomed (colored by bigotry related to this or that disapproved group of the day). Welcoming immigrants (as opposed to illegal aliens) has always been good for our economy; their "utility" as sources of support for retirees as a class is only a side effect of their overall contribution to our economy and our nation.
Eric Hines
