But it is a complete falsehood that there is any set-aside money or pension for you or me.
A half century ago LBJ stole that money and it has since been a part of all revenues. It is spent just like any other revenue.
In this sense, there is no Social Security account or set of pensions for SSN recipients.
The upside, if there is one, is that we can always allow people, going forward, to opt out of the conventional SS and thus privatize SS. Where this has been done it has been very successful.
In a few years most young people will have experience and confidence in individual investing and privatizing SS will be an easy sell.
See this article and this website about privatization of social security in Chile and Jose Pinera, the American-trained economist who did it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Pi%C3%B1era
https://fee.org/articles/how-we-privatized-social-security-in-chile/
Sorry I don't know how to do a hyperlink.
Did not mean to imply any money was “set aside, only that I have contributed well over a million dollars with interest that would have acrued.
I’ll be lucky to receive back a fraction of what was given.