the ratio of retirees to 'payers' is a looming problem. He should be creating jobs to ensure more 'payers.' To protect America. It's hard work, being President. :patriot:
President Discusses Strengthening Social Security in New Hampshire For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 16, 2005
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050216-3.htmlsnip (down to fourteenth paragraph)
And now I want to talk about Social Security. And I'm sure there are some, when they heard the State of the Union, if they listened to it, that said, why is he spending so much time on what had been -- used to be called the "third rail of American politics"? That means, if you touched it, you were politically electrocuted. I guess that's what it meant. I've touched it. I touched it in 2000, when I campaigned here and around the country; I touched it in 2004; and I really touched it at the State of the Union, because I believe we have a problem. And I want to talk to you about the problem.
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The problem is compounded by this: There's not enough people paying money into the system to pay for all that. The ratio of payers to beneficiaries is going from 16 to 1 to 3.3 to 1 today. And when -- and down the road it's going to be 2 to 1. So you can see the formula begins to get a little disturbed. It makes it hard to pay the promises.
As a matter of fact, in 2018, the system goes into the red.
And by the way, there's not a Social Security trust. In other words, people think your money goes into the trust and it's held for your account and then you get it out. That's not the way it works. It's pay as you go. It goes in and it goes out. And to the extent that there's money more than the retirees receive, like it is today, it goes to other programs. And so
what you've got is an IOU, kind of a bank of IOUs. It's an important concept.
So money that's going in is greater than money going out today for Social Security. But in 2018, the system goes into the red, and every year thereafter the situation gets worse -- 2027 will cost the federal government $200 billion above and beyond payroll taxes to make the promises. And in 2042 the system goes broke. Those are the facts.
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