Posted by
TheRationalRight on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 10:52:23 PM
Most Americans will acknowledge that Social Security is dwindling and is unlikely to provide funds for those whose retirement will not come for 20 years or so. This is a mathematical analysis of the problem.
From its inception, two things had to happen for Social Security to remain viable.
Number 1: Average life expectancy had to remain predictably consistent.
Number 2: The birthrate had to remain predictably consistent.
Instead, here’s what happened.
Number 1: People began living longer. In 1936 average life expectancy was 611 (4 years prior to retirement age), meaning that contributors did not expect to collect benefits at all. In 2007, average life expectancy was 782 (13 years past retirement age), meaning that most contributors now expect to collect Social Security benefits for more than a decade.
Number 2: Abortion became legal, and millions of pregnancies were terminated. Had these pregnancies been carried to term, there would be roughly 20 million3 more people in the workforce today contributing a portion of their paychecks into the Social Security pool.
To fix the problem, there are two possible solutions.
Option 1: Start terminating lives at a certain point after retirement in order to reduce the pool of Social Security recipients.
Option 2: Stop terminating lives before birth in order to increase the pool of Social Security contributors.
From a purely mathematical perspective, where Social Security is concerned, we are killing people at the wrong end of the life cycle.