During a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, Elon Musk said, “Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
Despite the predictable, sanctimonious political pearl-clutching, turns out the man was technically correct.
Let’s say I created a pension fund company. You paid into it and when you reach the age of 85, you’d get a monthly check. However the mortality rate in the United States today is 79 years old. People would look at that and call it a scam, and it would be an understandable way of looking at it. If enough people complained, I wouldn’t be surprised if state and federal law enforcement showed up at my door with a warrant and shiny handcuffs. Thank God we’re not living during the tar-and-feather, torch-and-pitchfork era.
Well, it turns out that’s exactly what President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 74th Democrat-controlled Congress did in 1935.
The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. In addition to several provisions for general welfare, the new Act created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement.
— Social Security Dot Gov
Now while this was portrayed as altruistic and a great benefit at the time, it appears Social Security was a slush fund created by Democrats to forcibly extract money from the American people; money that would not be repaid as promised in most circumstances.
In 1934, the American mortaility rate was 61 years old and the new Social Security payout was at age 65. FDR and the Democrats who passed the Act knew a good amount of Americans would never be around to take advantage of the program they paid into.
Unethical, heartless, evil; call it what you want.
Thanks to the advances in modern medicine, people are now living to the age of 79 years old while the Social Security payout age is 65. Even a college grad today can figure out why the math is horribly off and why the program is doomed, UNLESS the eligility age is raised.
It’s sad this whole Social Security mess isn’t communicated as simply as it is.
Then again, we all know why it’s been reduced to partisan scare tactics because the truth would be inconvenient.
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