Another dire problem for Social Security: Trustees may be calculating the birth rate wrong

The Social Security Trustees — who release a report each year on the health of the program that supports about 70 million retirees and people with disabilities — have been relying on overly optimistic forecasts for future fertility rates, according to a blog report from the Cato Institute.

Those forecasts are at odds with projections from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) — the nonpartisan federal agency that provides Congress with independent analysis of budgetary and economic issues — which both have much more sober forecasts for fertility rates.

Fertility rates and longevity are important to the finances of Social Security. Under a “pay-as-you-go” system like Social Security, taxes from current workers pay the benefits of current retirees. As fewer young people enter the labor force, there are fewer active taxpayers to support each beneficiary at a time when people are living longer — and taking benefits for longer.

“The Trustees are likely understating Social Security’s insolvency problem by assuming Americans will start having far more children than current trends suggest,” according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“Optimistic population assumptions translate into optimistic financial projections. In a pay-as-you-go system like Social Security, higher assumed fertility means more future workers paying taxes to finance benefits and thus a smaller projected shortfall,” the Cato blog report said.

Throughout your entire working career the money you paid in once it left you its not your money! That money paid the SS benefits of those already retired. Just like the current working generation is paying your current benefits. There’s been several USSC cases that say you have no asset ownership in the money you paid in. If you did you could leave it to your heirs. You can’t! If you live long enough you can take out far more then you put in. Consider the case of Ida May Fuller - the first Social Security recipient.

Fuller worked under Social Security just shy of three years, from the spring of 1937 to November 1939, and paid a total of $24.75 (equivalent to $522 in 2025) in Social Security taxes.

Fuller’s claim was the first one on the first certification list, so the first Social Security check (check number 00-000-001), dated January 31, 1940, was issued to Fuller in the amount of $22.54 (equivalent to $518 in 2025). She collected over her lifetime a total of $22,888.92 (equivalent to $526,010 in 2025) in Social Security benefits. Paid a total of $24.75 ($522 in 2025 dollars) into the system. Collected a total of $22,888.92 ($526,010 in 2025 dollars). There have been thousands if not tens of thousands of Ida May Fullers thanks to modern medicine!

I need to elaborate…I’m Gen X and haven’t collected a dime of SS or other benefits, but I’ve paid a boatload of money that was confiscated from me.

As we all lamentably have.

Now just as I am within about 10 years of getting some of my money back

No, you're not. 'Your' money was gone the moment Uncle Sam confiscated it in payroll taxes. It went immediately and directly to buy the vote of someone collecting Social Security.

you are fine with this criminal theft!

To reiterate, I'm not in favor of the ponzi financed Social Security system at all. I would end it immediately if it were up to me.

My point is simply that it is bad policy for the federal government to borrow trillions of dollars to send checks to people who are making more than the median household income (presently ~$83k/yr). I think it would be more ruinous to this nation to take on trillions more in debt to send checks to people who don't need them, just to make them feel better about a horrible ponzi scheme put in place generations ago by 'lousy communists'.

I don’t get any benefits. That’s my whole point. I am still about 10 years away. Of course I understand there is no account with my money for me.

Let me put this simply. If I don’t get any money after the hundreds of thousands taken from me for the purpose of such benefits, people will pay. I’m not going to have my life stolen like that. No need to elaborate further, but I’m willing to put my life on the line to get retribution.

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