“It was a fiction the instant the program started.”
When Social Security started, it was the norm for retirees to move in with their kids/grandkids and help raise those kids.
That was when there was large tight knit families.
Social Security was designed to be a supplemental income, it was never intended to be what people think of it today as being something to live independently.
It’s the byproduct of the liberalization of society. Breaking up families, fostering a sense of entitlement, etc.
When Social Security started, it was the norm for retirees to move in with their kids/grandkids and help raise those kids.
When Social Security started, tens of millions of seniors were in poverty from the depression. It was a response to major economic dislocation
By the way, an overwhelming majority of Republicans in both the Senate and the House voted for the Social Security legislation
And once if it’s most prominent supporters later was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower
These days, it is the main source of income for a big percentage of seniors, especially given the rampant age discrimination in the workplace where older people are the first to be laid off, and find getting a job nearly impossible. (Do you know any employers who hire people in their 60s?)
The GOP gains NOTHING today by opposing Social Security.