Who’s your real friend?

You probably either watched or read about the impromptu exchange at this year’s State of the Union address between President Biden and congressional Republicans concerning Social Security.

Did the rare display of politicians apparently in agreement that Social Security is “not to be touched” give you goosebumps — or chills?

I ask it that way because I firmly believe that any politician who pledges not to touch Social Security is not one who loves seniors, but rather one who disdains the more than 65 million people who are currently receiving benefits and the even larger number of Americans who will be expecting them in the future.

bank or other — this is not literally the case and never has been.

There is no huge government pension plan where the Social Security taxes you and your employers have been paying since you got your first paycheck get invested and grow over decades until you finally get to claim them in retirement.

From The Publisher

By Stuart P. Rosenthal

We have all known for decades that Social Security has been heading towards “insolvency” around the year 2030, give or take a few. The retirement of the baby boom generation (the last of whom will hit 60 in 2024) is part of the reason, but so is the rising longevity of Americans in general, thanks to the miracles of modern medicine.

You see, while politicians will tell you that Social Security is “your” money that you paid into the system — implying that it simply needs to be withdrawn from some

Instead, the wages of current workers are being taxed now to pay benefits to today’s retirees, just as they have been since 1935, when Social Security came into being.

The problem is, in 1935 there were 22 workers paying into the system for every retiree collecting benefits. Today, there are fewer than 3.

That’s a demographic fact no politician can afford to ignore: The smaller generations that followed the baby boom are carrying the burden of paying for the boomers’ (and their elders’) retirement.

Add to that the (generally) growing lifespan of each generation, and the problem we have long known was heading this way is now at our doorstep.

At the Beacon 50+ Expo in 2011, our keynote speaker was Charles Blahous, a public trustee of Social Security, who explained clearly that the popular program