Ratio of Workers to Soc. Sec. Recipients on the Decline

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Ratio of Workers to Soc. Sec. Recipients on the Decline

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 | Social Security |

Ross Perot is back, and this time he knows HTML. I especially liked this chart, which illustrates the challenges in keeping Social Security solvent:

So in 1960 you’ve got four workers supporting each person on Social Security. Currently that ratio is down to 3 to 1. If current demographic trends continue by 2032 there will only be two workers for each Social Security recipient.

That ratio isn’t sustainable. Something’s gotta give. What makes it worse is what isn’t shown - Medicare/Medicaid. Those are uncapped entitlement programs with much higher combined liabilities than Social Security.

3 Comments to Ratio of Workers to Soc. Sec. Recipients on the Decline

Thibodeaux
July 30, 2008

“Something’s gotta give.”

Which our government will translate as “You taxpayers gotta give…us more money.”

Les Jones
July 30, 2008

They’ll try, especially with Social Security. At some point that no longer works. At 20% of GDP by 2056 there’ll no way to give any more.

State pension funds heading for insolvency | Les Jones
November 26, 2008

[...] The system only really works when the population is steady or growing. Throw in a shrinking working population or a growing retirement population due to greater longevity and the ratio of workers to retirees becomes unsustainable. [...]