[thackney]

After all, its not exactly welfare.

You should try visiting a Social Security office these days. There are a surprising number of people that are getting payments without being of retirement age. Also, it is not a defined contribution plan but a defined benefit plan.

Why Social Security is welfare
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030602926.html

Here is how I define a welfare program: First, it taxes one group to support another group, meaning it's pay-as-you-go and not a contributory scheme where people's own savings pay their later benefits. And second, Congress can constantly alter benefits, reflecting changing needs, economic conditions and politics. Social Security qualifies on both counts.

...

Benefits shift; they're not strictly proportionate to wages but are skewed to favor low-wage earners - a value judgment reflecting who most deserves help; and they aren't paid from workers' own "contributions."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Social Security is more than retirement
http://ssa.gov/pubs/10024.html

Many people think of Social Security as just a retirement program. Although it is true that most of the people receiving Social Security receive retirement benefits, many others get Social Security because they are:

•Disabled; or
•A spouse or child of someone who gets Social Security; or
•A spouse or child of a worker who died; or
•A dependent parent of a worker who died.

Depending on your circumstances, you may be eligible for Social Security at any age. In fact, Social Security pays more benefits to children than any other government program.

[listenhillary]

http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/adhd-attention-deficit-social-security-disability.html

[concerned about politics]

First, it taxes one group to support another group

No man should be used as another mans slave.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Depending on your circumstances, you may be eligible for Social Security at any age. In fact, Social Security pays more benefits to children than any other government program.

As a child of unusual circumstances, I can attest to that. My parents were both older when I was born--my father, much much older. Until my two brothers turned 18, and until I graduated from college, we each received SS benefits. My mother, who had never worked outside the home in this country, also received them as the spouse of a recipient. Of course my father did as well, even after he continued to work at his small business. He lived to age 91.