Your fantasy would only be true if everyone in the US put retirement money under their mattress...
Do YOU know anyone who puts money under their mattress? No? Well, me either. And our government doesn't do it either. If there's extra money it's in an interest bearing account.
There has never been an eight year period of time when the markets didn't make money. And yeah, that include the crash of ‘29.
Not only would retirees be better off - but it would have stopped the crooks in the democrat party from creating a ponzi scheme by stealing OUR money. Then forcing illegals on us to pay for their horrors.
It's not that I wish every democrat dead... or that that they suffered the way a fair universe would make them suffer... but it's close.
You sound like Bill Clinton who wanted to put the SS surplus into the stock market. That’s nuts. First, the sheer size of the fund would distort the market. Second, do you really want the government to have such power given the politicization of all our institutions? Finally, benefits have exceeded revenue since 2010. The size of the SSTF will decline until it is exhausted in 2034.
Currently, the $2.8 trillion SSTF is held in interest bearing, non-market T -bills, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the USG. No money has been stolen. Medicare and SS are unsustainable due to actuarial reasons. Both programs are pay as go systems whereby today’s workers pay for today’s retirees. In 1950 there were 16 workers for every retiree; today, it is a little less than three to one; and by 2030 there will be two. We are an aging society with ten thousand baby boomers retiring every day until 2030. By then, one in five in this country will be 65 and older. And people are living longer.
SS and Medicare need to be reformed in order to be sustainable.