1. Offer millennials cancellation of their student debt, in exchange for their renunciation of SS retirement benefits.
2. Collect the tax anyway.
I’m serious. Millennials gain an immediate benefit, in exchange for surrendering a highly uncertain benefit 30-40 years in the future. Their continued payment of FICA taxes leaves them no worse off, while stabilizing the program for current and near-term retirees.
What am I missing?
What about the vast majority of Millenials who have no debt?
What you are missing is the current workers pay for the current retirees! If you stop collecting the FICA taxes , you still have to collect taxes to pay the benefits for those who are currently retired. Each working generation places a You-Owe-Me on the next generation for the SS benefits. From the SSA website
year: 1940, workers: 35,390,000 SS Beneficiaries: 222,000 Ratio: 159.4
year: 2013 workers: 163,221,000 SS Beneficiaries: 57,471,000 Ratio: 2.8
The SAA site
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ratios.html
I agree do it but you got to provide for the current crop of retirees (and those who are heavily “invested” [time-wise]) in the system and are likely ready to retire. So “taxes” aren’t going to change much likely go up until the those in t he system die off.
This why the SSA system is called a legal a “Ponzi Scheme”!