Two Birds with One Stone: Strengthen Social Security and Lower Unemployment at the Same Time

The recession has had victims across generations, from retired Americans who have lost value on homes and stock investments and need to go back to work, to those planning to retire soon, who now find they can’t, to recent graduates, who are looking for jobs, but find there are no openings. The President and some members of Congress are sounding alarm bells about the deficit, and targeting Social Security for cuts. But cutting Social Security will not solve any of the above problems.

Social Security is not in crisis, despite the alarmist rhetoric. Don’t be fooled. The Social Security surplus, often referred to as the Trust Fund, is $2.4 trillion dollars. It’s enough to continue to pay out benefits through 2037, without a single change, and the funding was planned this way because we knew the boomers would create a bubble when they began to retire, requiring a surplus. In the recent past, the federal government has borrowed from the surplus, which is counted as part of the national debt. It’s been used to pay for wars, bank bailouts, and Bush-era tax cuts. But we can’t reduce the debt by defaulting on those notes. It’s our money, we paid in, and the government owes it back to us.

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