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The Pros And Cons Of Privatizing Social Security

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Social Security is in need of reform as the Social Security Trust Fund is predicted to deplete between 2033 and 2037. Some economists and politicians suggest that taking the social insurance program to the free-market is the answer. What they mean is to privatize the program, where it would be mandatory for one to put funds in a private retirement investment account. Social Security began to run a deficit in 2010, meaning that the amount of money collected from taxes was not enough to cover the cost of the program. Privatizing Social Security has its advantages and disadvantages according to empirical findings and theoretical simulations. I will summarize what economists have collected from Chile and Mexico, these are just a few countries …show more content…

Social Security Act was part of the FDR’s New Deal program. Social Security was initially a retirement program and later added survivors and disability insurance, and Medicare. (Shiller 258) Social Security is an important program in the U.S., especially for the elderly. As the elderly age, their health care expenses tend to get bigger as they age. This program is not designed to prevent poverty, it is designed to be a social insurance for the elderly. People become eligible to receive benefits only if they have worked for a certain amount of years and paid payroll taxes. Social Security has helped prevent poverty in the United States. In 2005, around 10% of older Americans were considered to be poor with Social Security, without Social Security the amount of elderly Americans in poverty would be around 49%. Beneficiaries are dependent of the social insurance as it accounts for a big portion of their total income when they are retired. From age 65 to 69, 27% of total income for beneficiaries comes from Social Security. Ages 70 to 74 38% of total income comes from Social Security benefits, ages 75 to 79 46%, and ages 80 plus 53%. Therefore, as beneficiaries become older, they begin to rely more and more Social Security benefits as a source of …show more content…

Chile is the pioneer for social security going from the public-sector to the private-sector. The reformation to privatizing social security has been a success for Chile, but one must also consider the other factors that were present at the time. One has to consider that the country became decentralized, where much of the businesses were owned by the public-sector. They shifted to the private-sector and stopped being a closed economy. They opened up to globalization and lowered tariffs which helped the country grow. The reason they reformed their social security program was due to social security’s burden on the Chilean economy. The systems failure was due to an unchanged requirement to receive benefits. Much contribution to the failure was due to demographics. With people living longer the old system was offset where in the 1955 the contributor to beneficiary ratio was 12 to 1 and in 1979 2.5 to

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