Well, frankly, I don't think any solution will be sufficient because of the demographics...it really doesn't matter how much money or how little money people have to retire on if there isn't enough people to do the WORK required to support society. Does it matter if you have a million dollars to spend if there is nothing to spend it on??? (Think post WWI Germany and its devastating inflation.) My wife works at a nursing home and they already have shortages of CNA's and LPN's even though they offer good wages; multiply the residents of nursing homes by a factor of two or three and simultaneously divide the pool of workers by a factor of two and imagine the results.
Yep. Demographics = cuts. There is no way out from that, unless you want to tax workers to death, and tempt them to do a King Lear and cause their parents to assume an early room temperature.
Yup, it's the demographics for sure.....
Started out with 40+ workers for every retiree. Soon we'll be at 2 workers for every retiree. But worse is the fact that those 2 workers may be low wage earners. Look at our current crop of school kids. Here in CA, a large percentage of our future workers drop out or graduate with degrees they really didn't deserve.
We need more people, but not just third world immigrants. I'd like to think there would be a couple of rocket scientists or engineers supporting me when I retire but, I'll probably end up with a fast food worker and a gardner supporting me in retirement.