No one can blame college students for being more concerned with exams and finding a job than they are about retirement, but there is no excuse for the apathy that our generation is showing toward the debate over the privatization of Social Security.
President Bush is campaigning for a plan to take money from our social security taxes and invest it into private accounts in the stock market. He says Social Security will be bankrupt by the time we retire.
It is true that the number of retired citizens over 65 living off Social Security taxes taken out of the working class’ salaries is greatly increasing. But the Social Security Administration created a reserve trust fund to provide the Baby Boomers with social security benefits. The SSA will begin using this reserve in 2013 and is projected to have enough to cover benefits 100 percent until 2042.
After that, Social Security will not be bankrupt but will be able to cover about 80 percent of our benefits at least through our lifetime. If you research the private accounts plan and compare it with traditional social security, the figures show that we stand to earn more under traditional social security even after it has been reduced by 27 percent.
Supporters of the private accounts don’t mention that you will pay interest on the money you made in your private account at the end of your working career and that administration fees will reduce your accumulation by at least 5 percent. Also, it is costly to convert your accumulated sum to lifetime annual payments, which is required under the president’s plan.
Something needs to be done to build on Social Security to strengthen it, but private accounts are not the solution. The bottom line is that privatization means a reduction in guaranteed benefits.
Retirement could have a different meaning for us than it did for our grandparents, and already it is a longer journey. The age when Americans start collecting their Social Security check has been raised to 67 for our generation and there are talks in Congress of pushing it back further. If we keep ourselves in the dark, we could be 85-year-olds wondering why our social security check hasn’t come yet.
The solution is to get informed. Log on to RocktheVote.com, a Web site that encourages young people to get involved in politics.
Young people will be ripped off by this change in Social Security, but it is mostly people who are already retired or close to it who are getting involved in the debates. We can’t leave it up to the American Association of Retired People to fight our battle.
Another way to learn more and have an input is to attend the Louisiana AARP Social Security Forum March 28 from 10 a.m. to noon in New Orleans at the Municipal Auditorium in Armstrong Park.
