Reason: Social Security's Progressive Paradox: Retirement 'insurance' as a Rube Goldberg machine Reason: Social Security's Progressive Paradox: Retirement 'insurance' as a Rube Goldberg machine

Interesting article today in Reason Magazine by Julian Sanchez titled 'Social Security's Progressive Paradox Retirement "insurance" as a Rube Goldberg machine'.

It points out that the Social Security system today is essentially retained as a forced retirement program so as to cover up the much smaller transfer payments to the indigent. Most of the money moves from the middle class back to the middle class. But a small percentage of it is welfare, and that portion is what is being hidden, due to the vulnerability of welfare in our society. In other words, the welfare portion is unlikely to stand the test of time all on its own, so it is hidden within the much larger transfer payments.

I should add the obvious corollary of this, which is that the more that the tie between what people pay in is cut from what they get out, such as by, for example, income limiting benefits, and/or increasing taxes, the less the welfare portion of the program is hidden, and the less public support the program has.