Social Security Information to Clear the Air

Conservatives see it as a dangerous taint of socialism, but in a year when food stamp use is so widespread that there is just no stigma of poverty associated with it anymore, Social Security has to be viewed as one of the most sacred and unalterable rights that come with citizenship, right next to suffrage and maybe rooting for your team at the Super Bowl. Either way, myths about Social Security, or a particular lack of accurate Social Security information is usually what brings people to hold such extreme and intense views. Going over some of the most trusted misinformation out there, should clear the air a little bit.

Conservatives like to allege that the whole Social Security idea was based on the hope that people never live long enough to take advantage of it. Social Security holds the retirement age to be 65; and they believe that they pick that age because people usually did not live that long back in 1935 when the system was put in place. This myth slips up because it takes the average life expectancy back then to really be the age beyond which people did not live. If 60 was the average age people could expect to live to, back then, there were still lots of people who died earlierand ones that lived beyond it. People back then who reached 60, usually expected to live another 20 years. A little expectation of the Social Security information people read could help them avoid misinterpretations like this.

Conservative subscribers like to read up on Social Security information in the papers, about how the system is running short on money, and in a xenophobic way, they right away chalk it up to all the freeloading foreigners, Mexicans and Latinos having their Social Security checks mailed across borders to them. As usual, just a little reading up would easily dispatch with this particular myth. The system sends out more than 50 million checks every year, and barely half a million make it abroad. Many of those recipes, are really American citizens who just happened to be settled abroad. Even if there are foreigners claiming their checks, they would not be on the system if they never worked in the US, for the 10 years it takes to get enrolled. If you do want to blame something, how about taking up the sheer range of problems that make people eligible to claim it? In the beginning, Social Security only started as a simple retirement benefit for people who had worked all their lives. But over the years, the government made amendments that would make eligible, anyone with a disability, it arranged for health care for anyone past retirement age, and even saw the birth of a supplemental security income system for all the vulnerable people in society. With such a large part of society covered, there are just not enough capable working people not claiming a check remaining anymore, to keep paying the ones who are incapacitated.

The security net funded by the government, is perennially in trouble. Sweden, a real socialist country, has socially funded programs for everything you could imagine; and their government is so deep in debt, that they would have to mooch on Finland next door for three whole years to emerge from it. The debate about how well thought-out the whole social net idea is, is as open today as ever. But it's least, it would be nice if people didn't make accusations that were not based on sound Social Security information.