Privatization and the Future of Social Security In America

Eric B. Sposito, Rutgers University - Newark

Abstract

Examining the fiscal condition of the social security system in America and the effects of the plans proposed to deal with future O.A.S.D.I. shortfalls.

There is a very real fear that when the time is right the politician on the national level will come to some sort of compromise that will endanger the retirement prospects for all Americans.

Upon close examination the financial crises in the social security trust fund is not a crisis at all. The minor adjustments that need to be made in order to secure the funding for this essential defined benefit pension plan, disability, and survivor insurance fund are easily made and not very painful. The idea of personal saving accounts, while seemingly attractive at first blush, are designed to bring neo-liberal structural adjustment programs to the United States of America.

A thorough examination of the current health of the social security trust fund and its prospects in the future can only shed light on the debate that is ongoing. When the American people see the truth behind the spin they will invariably make the correct assumptions. Other nations have attempted to do the very things that the conservative politicians are advocating. The effects of those initiatives must be exposed before any attempt is made to changer our national retirement system. The paper outlines all the pertinent issues and supports the author’s thesis that social security retirement benefits are too important to be tampered with.