One thing a lot of people just don't get is that SS was always intended to be only about a third of retirement income. The other two thirds to come from a pension and savings.
There's also a lot of myths surrounding the old traditional defined benefit pension. Mainly, that at their height they only covered about half of all workers. Half. Think about that very carefully. The image so many have that back in the Golden Age all employees worked for thirty years at one company and got a lovely pension at the end is just that: a myth.
Then there's the problem of companies abrogating their pension obligations, mainly through bankruptcy. I know. I'm one of them. My pension from a former employer is one third of what it should have been.
Then there's the problem of state, county, or municipal pensions, which have been underfunded for decades. I recall reading about this sometime in the 70's. So now, it's put out that those pensions are far too generous and need to be cut back. And all along those employees played by the rules. They often took lower wages because of the promise of retirement income. A lot of those jobs do not participate in Social Security. And now employees who retired on the promise of a decent retirement income are seeing that money cut back drastically.
My solution is this: SS be strengthened. We collect that tax up to a much higher amount, say $1,000,000 in wages, but leave the benefits pretty much as they are.
Companies and governments be REQUIRED to fund their pensions adequately. And still offer 401k plans to those who wish to participate.
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