These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Social security: the Ponzi path to dystopia.
    Author: Simcox D.
    Journal: NPG Forum Ser; 1998 Oct; ():1-8. PubMed ID: 12178985.
    Abstract:
    This article challenges the Ben Wattenberg view that Social Security solvency in the US is related to population growth. Population growth would only delay the problem and future sustainability and aggravate demographic and environmental conditions. The Social Security Trust Fund needs a remedy before 2013 and 2032. Revenues will only pay for 70-77% of benefits paid out to the elderly. Population size would need to increase by an additional 200 million to reach 600 million by 2050 in order to balance the ratio of workers to elderly. In 2013, 22.2% of immigrants and 19.1% of native population will be aged 65 years and older. The author shows population projections to 2050 to show the impact of increased immigration and a 4:1 ratio of working age to elderly persons. The pace of growth and the size of the growth would strain social resources, management ability, and infrastructure. Immigrants' low wages would not satisfy the trust income deficit. A doubling of the immigrant labor force by 2040 would also require an additional capital investment of over $20 trillion for equipment and training. The tripling of new immigrants since 1995 could increase immigration of aged parents. Solvency may be reached through policy shifts that would encourage more women to work for longer periods, eliminate pronatalist taxes, limit immigration to under 200,000 yearly, deter non-self-sufficient, unproductive immigrants, restrict immigration of those aged over 50 years, end evasion of Social Security taxes in the informal economy, charge user fees for sponsorship or employment of foreign workers, and deny retirement credits for those ineligible to work in the US. Policies should allow seniors to work.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]