Commentary on America’s Workforce
It’s fairly common knowledge that Social Security is staring down the barrel of insolvency. The implications are that, within about 6 years, unless corrective action is taken to address the program’s funding problems, all Social Security recipients will face an across-the-board reduction in benefits of 20% to 25%. One of the reasons for this looming catastrophe is the workforce supporting the program, where the taxpayer-to-beneficiary ratio has dropped dramatically, from 42:1 in 1945 to less than 3:1 today, with projections calling for a continued decline in the years ahead. The most recent annual Social Security Trustees’ report noted, “There were about 2.7 workers for every OASDI beneficiary in 2024.”
Some of this decline can be attributed to the aging of the workforce and the shift in the population from working-age to retirement-age, but other factors are at play. For example, a recent Heritage Foundation post reports, “There are about 7 million men aged 25-54 that are neither working or looking for work! Our welfare policies have created a devastatingly perverse incentive for dependency rather than productivity.” Check out this Heritage/Fox News clip for more background on this.
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