Social Security

As the least equipped of our distinguished writers I am perhaps least to be considered. That said, I have been struck over the years by one factor in the continuing debate on the extent of social benefits. And that is the balance between the degree of personal risk that keeps us alert and the comfort of guarantees to the extent they engender complacency.

Jośe Piñera, former minister of labor under Pinochet and the “father” of pension privatization in Chile, as well as a promoter of that approach throughout the world, has recently discussed his conversations with and encouragement to President Bush to apply the Chilean prescription to cure U.S. social security ills (New York Times, December 1, 2004, A81).

I am concerned that we are focused on only one of the 3 legs of the proverbial retirement security stool, namely, the Social Security leg, when the other two legs are even more wobbly. Consider the erosion of employer-sponsored retirement plans, the wobbliness of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and the lack of individual retirement savings. Time for a little broader perspective.

Moreover, we need to have a discussion on what the implications are for SSDI, the risk of cost-shifting to the SSI program, and new burdens on the states for the SSI and Medicaid programs. All of this becomes part of the mix.

As the Social Security debate heats up, the outcome may well depend on the language and labels used by proponents of fundamental changes in the program and by those who want to preserve its essential nature.