If it was indexed back to the % of people who lived beyond the original retirement age from the 30s, it would now be about 75 or 76. And by the way, that would make the program solvent (assuming we get rid of Obama’s SSI give aways).
I believe that is exactly right.
In it’s current incarnation, social security is a pure ponzi scheme. The idea is that you can put in a finite amount of cash and then pull out a much larger amount of cash — for decades. That just doesn’t work.
Originally, the idea was that most people would pay in, most people would die before the retirement age, most people would lose all the money that they paid in, and very, very few people would get payouts of any kind — and those lucky people would also most likely die before collecting for too many years.
Now, it’s all quite different, and the numbers are just not sustainable.
Again: Social Security was designed as a system in which most people would pay and get nothing. That was the plan
Guess what? We’re going back to that. The people (such as myself) who paid in, and who may feel that they are “owed” money, are most likely not going to get much of anything. It’s how it was meant to be.