Pay into it all your life and get nothing back. What a deal.
It’s probably gonna happen anyway.
The system HAS to be changed, however, a true reform would look something like this and have many other parts to it:
1. A phase-in privatization where people pay into a private, but insured account placed in relatively conservative investments. Those under 30, for example, would pay exclusively into a private account, 30 - 50 would split it somehow, and over 50 pay the existing system. Since older workers tend to make more this would skew things in favor of those already recieving social security over the private accounts initially.
2. The 6% employers now pay to SS would now be paid into the employee’s private account the same way it’s now paid into the ponzi scheme (proportioned according to age as indicated above).
3. Major cuts in entitlements in other areas (including “disability” payments for people perfectly capable of getting a low-impact job that would pay the $1200 a month or so they recieve on SSI now), and shaving off Congressional and civil service pensions to something more comparable to the private sector would help shore up the funding needed to make up the shortfall created by step #1 to cover existing obligations under the “old system”.
4. For those who are unable to earn enough (or have a spouse to do so) in private accounts, a very very small system can be kept in place that is the same as the current system. SSI would also be covered under this umbrella.