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That’s a fair solution - gradual increases to minimize hits to those right at retirement age but not putting an enormous burden on future generations while only benefitting the elderly

It is not a fair solution in any sense. My rate of return will be paltry as it is. Raising the retirement age will make the system an even worse deal.

Politically, raising the retirement age may be the only feasible solution. I am not convinced that gradually increasing the retirement age will solve the problem. I have not studied the math but the solution does not ring true to me.

A much better idea is to allow individuals to opt out in exchange for elimination of benefits. Slowing the growth of inflation is also important. Average wage indexing is crazy. No other pension has average wage indexing. The reason it is used for Social Security is to increase payroll taxes. The politicians like an easy way to raise taxes.

If you don’t think its fair, fine... :)

But think about other proposed solutions:

1) Tax increases - who likes these?
Raising taxes by 1% (from 12.4 to 13.4%) covers 59% of the gap.
Eliminating the earnings cap (no higher benefits for higher contributors) solves 100% of the gap
Raising the cap 25% solves 26% of the gap
Taxing benefits like pensions solves 16% of the gap
Including all government workers (and paying benefits) solves 13% of the gap.

2) Benefit cuts - who has the guts to propose these?
Reducing COLA by 0.5% solves 44% of the problem
Reducing benefits by 5% solves 35% of the problem
Means testing to reduce benefits for those earning over $20k solves 80% of the problem but also unfairly punishes people for saving.

I simply say that raising the age is the fairest solution because it includes NO tax increases or benefit cuts, other than the number of expected years of benefits. And then it just reduces the number of years of expected benefits back to the same number of years as when social security was started. In other words, it comes as close as possible to maintaining all promises made without unfairly taxing younger workers to pay for benefits they’ll never see or some other bogus solution.

And since it is a gradual increase over 20 YEARS, the retirement age would acutally only increase by 55 days or so every year. We aren’t talking a quantum leap. If you’re near retirement, it will barely affect you.