In the Year 2025...Plus 15...

[Shuckins]

...Social Security is scheduled to go bankrupt.

Gee...wonder what coulda happened widdat?

Could it possibly be due to Congress opening the original "lock-box" back in the 1970s and spending the coffers dry with pork-barrel legislation?

Or, could it be due to the changes in immigration laws that allow illegal aliens to apply for citizenship and government benefits if they live here long enough without being caught?

No...wait...its probably the fault of the government expanding benefits to cover those who pay little or nothing into the system...after all...those people are voters, er...citizens too...right?

Ah well...it's not like this wasn't expected.  I've been telling my sons for ten years not to expect Social Security to be around when they reach retirement age.

Looks like they'll be on their own.

[RTSigma]

Time to start selling coke I guess.

[Sandman]

Social security works fine as long as the work force is large enough to support the retirees.

Tell you kids to make babies. Lot's of 'em.

[nirvana]

Originally posted by Sandman
Social security works fine as long as the work force is large enough to support the retirees.

Tell you kids to make babies. Lot's of 'em.

Population ois already too big.  More people=more food=more land+more land for homes.  We could resort to cannibalism...

[Sandman]

Originally posted by nirvana
Population ois already too big.  More people=more food=more land+more land for homes.  We could resort to cannibalism...

Read this. There's another reason other than social security.

What’s the better bet? A globalization that exports cheeseburgers and pop songs or a globalization that exports the fiercest aspects of its culture? When it comes to forecasting the future, the birth rate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it’s hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 (or 2033, or 2037, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management and Queer Studies degrees). And the hard data on babies around the western world is that they’re running out a lot faster than the oil is. “Replacement” fertility rate—i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller—is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?

Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you’ll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada’s fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That’s to say, Spain’s population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy’s population will have fallen by 22 percent, Bulgaria’s by 36 percent, Estonia’s by 52 percent. In America, demographic trends suggest that the blue states ought to apply for honorary membership of the EU: in the 2004 election, John Kerry won the sixteen with the lowest birth rates; George W. Bush took twenty-five of the twenty-six states with the highest. By 2050, there will be 100 million fewer Europeans, 100 million more Americans—and mostly red-state Americans.

[Shuckins]

Aw...cut it out Sandman...you're just trying to cheer me up.

[john9001]

Social Security is not going bankrupt, at that date the SS taxes will be less than the outflow, at that point they will start cashing in all the govt bonds that SS holds.