What you say is all well and good if SS was an earned benefit, but it is not. It is a welfare program as the USSC has codified with certain rulings. We all are paying in but the few get to pay more, and get out less. I realize this, as I am one of those. Logic no longer matters though, the next popular push is going to be for minimum basic income. It will happen as sure as Pelosi will need another face lift. Conservatives have lost on this battle many many times The best way is to go with Chile’s plan, but somewhere in the middle is where we start. Compromise with a new era of SS, bump up the poors draw from it, put all workers into that Chilean plan, and give them a choice of a pittance, or real money growth that they own.
It is neither a personally-owned asset nor a welfare benefit. One does earn it through minimum participation of 40 quarters, but what is earned is at the discretion of the government.
The program is overgenerous to the poor as it is, and indulging that fatal flaw won’t make it any better.
What is overlooked is that if the replacement rate of pre-retirement income were held steady, instead of creeping up over the decades, over 90% of the structural deficit would be eliminated.
Then, with a few minor tweaks, that don’t include more brigandage, one could offer a small matching by the feds on private accounts for the bottom quintile of the wage earning populace, which could eventually lead to full privately-owned accounts.