Social Security was never meant to be a retirement program and people were never intended to receive a dollar for dollar investment back. It is a social safety net and a pillar of the societal contract with you fellow Americans. It was created when the elderly were literally starving because of their inability to save for retirement or retirements wiped out during the depression. Get angry at the oligarchs that created the situation then and creating the income inequality we experience now. Stop punching down.
Exactly. When initially implemented (1935), the average life expectancy in the US was 60 years old. Sure you can point to infant mortality, but only 53% of men who made it to 21 also made it 65.
This was not meant to be a retirement plan. It was a safety net for old people who could no longer work.
This is why people loved union jobs with pensions. Those were actual retirement plans.
This is misleading. Life expectancy was low because a ton of people died in childhood. Most people who made it to adulthood could be expected to live to 65, and those who made it to 65 were likely to live into well into their 70s. https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
Social Security was absolutely a retirement program and still is. It was never intended to be the only thing - because when it was created many employers offered pensions. And then our politicians let them stop doing that and demanded we all save our own money. Which has worked out terribly.
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u/TransporterAccident_ 5d ago
Social Security was never meant to be a retirement program and people were never intended to receive a dollar for dollar investment back. It is a social safety net and a pillar of the societal contract with you fellow Americans. It was created when the elderly were literally starving because of their inability to save for retirement or retirements wiped out during the depression. Get angry at the oligarchs that created the situation then and creating the income inequality we experience now. Stop punching down.