I have complicated feelings on Social Security, but fundamentally, getting enough benefits to pay for healthcare and keep you out of poverty at age 65, provided that you had 35 years of full time employment, sounds good to me.
Now, maybe it should look different from how it does now. Maybe HNW individuals shouldn't get benefits. Maybe all earnings should be taxed. Maybe those with pensions from other sources should have their benefits reduced. Maybe the trust should be invested in stocks and secured debt instead of just treasury debt. Some combination of all that sounds fine.
On balance, I think the move to defined contribution retirement has been a disaster. It's worked out very well for me because I'm a freak who is obsessed with personal finance, but there is no way that it hasn't been a net drag on the economy.
Any middle-income person paying more than 50 basis points for a retirement plan is tragic. But it happens. A lot. We've created an industry around shuffling AUM, creating churn, and any number of other net negative value financial activity. You can argue that individuals should be more hands on, and I agree. But sometimes, you're just locked into the investment choices your company gives you. You can write an email to HR asking about expanding the options. You can hit the job market and make sure to ask questions about investment options in the interview. You can back off on your 401k contributions after getting the company match and then start prioritizing a self directed IRA instead, where you can pick lower cost funds. I encourage everyone to do any or all of those things. But any effort spent doing that is effort *not* spent being more productive at your job. Furthering your education in other non-financial areas. Looking after your kids and community.
As an office drone, I sort of relate it to the outsourcing and ticketing based approach to IT. It sounds like it should be good on paper. It'll reduce costs. It creates a system to track the completion of IT issues and effectiveness. In reality though, what ticketing systems do, is incentive closing out tickets, by any means possible. Fill out a form, and it will go to IT. IT will do "something", and you'll get an automated email back, saying that your issue has been resolved. If it hasn't been resolved, it's on you to create another ticket or follow the next steps laid out. But either way, the goal from the ticket system perspective, is to put the ball back in your court as quickly as possible.
For me, at least, this results in me just getting beat down by the system. I learn to live with 50% of my tech issues, solve 25% of them myself, and maybe push IT on the final 25%. This is a bad outcome. Frankly, I'm too good at my core job, and I'm paid way too much, to spend any amount of time fucking around with drivers in Windows. I *can* do that, but it's not a good use of my time.
The same is true for most people spending time managing their retirement. A pension system like SS should provide a minimum standard for retirees and we should encourage people to pursue DC for anything above and beyond that.