Krugman: The Clean Little Secret of Social Security: It's a pretty good program, and we can afford it.

[CousinIT]

It's behind a paywall. I can't afford the subscription. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-clean-little-secret-of-social

Social Security is in the crosshairs of the Musk/Trump administration. First Musk came out with the claim that tens of millions of dead people are still receiving benefits. This claim has been thoroughly debunked, but still made its way into deputy president Trump’s big speech Tuesday. Then Musk began declaring that the 90-year-old program is a Ponzi scheme.

The first claim seems to reflect the fact that the Dunning-Kruger kids — the mostly very young staffers DOGE sent into the Social Security Administration, too incompetent to see their own incompetence — didn’t know how to interpret SSA databases. The second claim showed that Musk doesn’t understand what Social Security is or how it works.

To be fair, however, Musk isn’t alone in his lack of understanding, although he may be unique in his combination of arrogance and ignorance. So I thought I’d devote this week’s primer to the basics of Social Security. Beyond the paywall you’ll find:

1. How Social Security works from workers’ point of view

2. How it’s financed

3. Why the challenge of keeping the system going isn’t as hard as you think

[Wounded Bear]

1. That's why RWers hate it. It works...nt

[CousinIT]

4. Exactly. They don't want Americans to see that government agencies can work for them. nt

[wishstar]

2. Reagan Admin began relentlessly undermining by saying program was going broke

I worked for SSA back then and noticed that instead of previous Administrations that promoted public trust and support for the program, under Reagan their new publications and official statements radically changed with warnings about trust fund running out and being depleted and not having enough money down the road to guarantee payments. And of course Congress under Reagan passed legislation increasing taxation and changing benefit formulas to lower future benefits.

The current older generation of recipients get much lower SS amounts than their parents compared to taxes paid in and if Repubs get their way again, younger folks will get even lower benefits and have to wait longer than current recipients or else see total overhaul with privatization.

[99MainSt]

3. Krugman understates for effect:

Social Security is more than a "pretty good" program".

It is the genius plan of FDR, who signed it into law in 1935. Since then, it has prevented countless numbers of Americans from falling into poverty and has been a security blanket for the aged.

The success of Social Security has earned the confidence of Americans. Now, the Trump administration is not only trying to break down that confidence by lying to the American people, but trying to destroy the agency itself.

[CousinIT]

5. It is the most successful anti-poverty program in America. nt

[Irish_Dem]

6. Plenty of money to build rockets to Mars.

But no money for American safety net.

[2naSalit]

7. K&R

[misanthrope]

9. Musk is outright lying when he calls SSA a Ponzi scheme

The reason being that he knows what an outright Ponzi scheme looks like because he is neck-deep in cryptocurrency.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. Exactly.

Nothing new there.