I think SS is going to be fine. It's a social contract with a political backstop.
+2
I think anyone worried about wholesale changes to SS are really doing themselves a disservice. Even if you're young, the idea that you won't receive benefits (or drastically reduced benefits) is almost impossible. Folks should remember some important points that make it unlikely there will ever be any dramatic changes to it in our own lifetimes:
- Inertia: It will be exceedingly difficult to ever cut SS benefits. It's not even ever discussed as an option by anyone with any legitimate input. All the proposed methods of making SS more viable in the very long term have almost nothing to do with any significant cutting to benefits; instead, they're about increasing payroll contributions from today's workers, making slight changes to inflation calculations, and other small tweaks. I have not even seen potentially deferring benefits (upping the age when you can take it) discussed by anyone.
2. Politics: Neither side has any appetite for killing or heavily modifying SS. Our population is graying, and the older population has tremendous political clout. No one wants to piss them off. Saying you want to cut benefits would 100% guarantee defeat for a politician. Besides, even the population at large does not want any wholesale changes to the program. Every poll confirms this. If you've paid anything into the program at this point, you're not likely to suffer any significant change.
3. The retirement part of the program is not bad off. It's still viable, and forecast to be viable for a long time even with no changes. It's the death and disability part of the program that has issues, and that is separate. Only very small tweaks are needed to keep the current SS retirement program completely healthy for the foreseeable future, and there are several to choose from. For example, raising the limit on payroll caps for contributions would, by itself, completely fix SS retirement forever (the foreseeable future). Right now, earnings over $117,000 are exempt from SS taxes. If that limit was raised or eliminated, it would completely fix SS on its own. Probably 95% of voters would support that change, because very few people earn more than that. Your expected benefits would still be the same 30 years from now.