Over the history of Social Security, the Pay as You Go system generated a surplus balance of $2.9 trillion. If the government did not raid the Trust Fund it would not be full of IOU's. Now if SS needs to draw on the Trust Fund, the IOUs must first be paid back. None of that is the fault of the SS program.
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https://www.ssa.gov/policy/trust-funds-summary.html
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The honest thing for the government to do would be to decide the future of SS so individuals could plan accordingly, instead they do nothing but make dire threats of impending doom.
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I include SS as one small part of of my personal retirement program. How can people plan under current conditions? Once again our government is failing American taxpayers in a critical area that effect's everyone.
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If I was pre-retirement age I'd be screaming for a solution. All worker's currently pay in 6.2 percent of their income