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Being an Investment Broker I used to have the Ibbotson chart memorized and I can't remember if there was a twenty year period but the market from 1920 to 1936 after the depression went pretty much sideways.........no other periods were negative for longer than 5 or 6 years or so

That is what my broker told me. I am a 55 year old widow. I am not counting on SS for much at all. I like my IRA's. When my husband died, I sat down with his broker and, knowing nothing about any of that sort of thing, asked him what was the safest thing I could do with the IRA's and the other things my husband had in his portfolio. So, we kept the things that were under The Hartford, got rid of riskier investments, and chose something similar to The Hartford, but not quite as "safe", and my portfolio has grown surprisingly well. If I were one of the Gen Xer's, I would opt for the President's plan in a heartbeat. With a good broker like mine, I could do much better than SS. :)

Actually, if you had invested at the market top in 1967 or whenever it was, you would not have had a portfolio with incresed purchasing power until something like 1982. In short for about 15 years, the return was below the inflation rate.