LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND SOCIAL SECURITY by Patrick W. Watson
6 min readSep 16, 2019
Lies, Damned Lies,
and Social Security
Patrick W. Watson
T he feds may call “Social Security” a retirement program,
but it’s actually an unsound, unfair, unworkable, and im-
moral system of wealth redistribution. It’s bankrupting Amer-
ica and destroying rather than creating financial security.
Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced Social Security in 1936.
Congress, which as usual was only too happy to go along
with executive violations of the Constitution, promised that
Social Security would “provide safeguards against all of the
hazards leading to destitution and dependency.” Instead of
safeguarding against dependency, Social Security has in-
creased it.
Like earthquakes which announce themselves with small
tremors, the burden of Social Security was at first almost un-
noticeable. In 1937, the tax rate was 1% on the first $3,000 in
earnings; the maximum was thus $30 a year, to be matched
by the employer.
In the post-war years Social Security grew as Congress
and presidents added more benefits until the program be-
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came an Omnibus Vote-Buying Act. Congress passed across-
the-board benefit increases of 7% (1965), 13% (1967), 15%
(1969), and then in 1972 tied benefits to the Consumer Price
Index, yielding an annual “cost-of-living adjustment.”
The SS taxes also grew larger, of course. In 1937 the maxi-
mum was $30 annually. By 1970 it was $374.40, an increase of
over 1,000%. In 1971 Abraham Ellis— author of the prescient
Social Security Fraud was called a right-wing alarmist for pre-
dicting that by 1987 the tax would rise to 5.9% of the first
$15,000, or $885. He was wrong; actual 1987 rates were 7.15%
of the first $43,800, or $3,131. Even this pessimist was 300%
too optimistic.
When the program began, there were 100 workers paying
into the system for every three people drawing benefits. By
1985 those 100 workers supported 32 retirees. Barring drastic
changes in the birthrate, by 2030 there will be 52 retirees
drawing benefits for every 100 workers paying in. Over time,
then, the ratio of workers to retirees has shifted from 33-1 to
3-1, with worse to come.
In July 1987 the median age was 32.1 years in the United
States, the highest ever. The fastest-growing group was that
between 35-44 years: the baby boomers. By 2010 the first of
these will be retiring. Will there be any benefits to collect?
Maybe, but only at tremendous cost to the rest of us.
Then there is the Social Security “trust fund.” It works like
this: your employer, acting as an unpaid tax collector, deducts
7.5% of your wages up to $45,000 a year, matches this amount,
and sends it all to Washington. The Social Security Adminis-
tration deposits it into the Treasury, and in return receives
IOUs (Treasury Bonds) payable sometime in the future. Con-
gress and the president then spend the cash on endive
research and other incumbency enhancement schemes.
What happens in 20 or 30 years when the IOUs are due?
The U.S. government has no money of its own, of course. It
can pay back the Social Security trust fund only through
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more taxes, more borrowing, or more inflating. All three
come out of the people’s pocketbook.
The first person to retire under Social Security was Miss
Ida Fuller. When she retired in 1939, she had paid in only
$22. On January 31, 1940, she got her first check: $22.54. Ida
Fuller lived to be 100 years old, and the checks kept coming,
just as FDR promised. In 34 years of retirement they totaled
over $20,000.
Once long-lived people like Ida Fuller were the exception.
Now they are the rule. Yet while more and more people live
into their 80s and even 90s, the official retirement age re-
mains 65. Why? Because in the 1880s the authoritarian
German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck set 65 as the retire-
ment age for his Social Security program. But the average life
expectancy in Germany was then 45.
A child born in America in 1776 would, on average, die at
35. Even in 1950, people 65 and over made up only 7.7% of
the population. Now that figure stands at 12%, and by 2020
should be 17.3%.
Neil Howe writing in the American Spectator says there are
no believable projections for public health-care spending in
the next century. Even conservative estimates are off the
charts. However, he thinks we could easily see 20 or 30% pay-
roll taxes 40 years from now, just to pay for Medicare and
Medicaid! Add in the cash benefits and you could lose half
your paycheck even before income tax is deducted. No one
seriously believes we will see such taxes. More likely we will
either change the system drastically or go through an eco-
nomic collapse.
Social Security is built on lies, thievery, and coercion.
Notice that Social Security check stubs refer to FICA (Fed-
eral Insurance Contributions Act). In truth Social Security is
a tax. You are required by law to pay; if you refuse the gov-
ernment puts you in jail. But they call it a “contribution” as
if we were giving to the United Way. Nor is there any “insur-
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283
ance.” If a private insurance policy were as unsound as Social
Security, its sellers would go to jail.
Private con games like the classic “Ponzi scheme” are il-
legal. But when the government runs them, they become so-
cial and secure. Charles Ponzi was a 1920s swindler whose
trick was to sell people an investment that promised a big
return, then take their money, pay off earlier customers, and
move on. The supply of such investors is finite, so while
those who got in early did well, sooner or later it had to come
to a screeching halt.
Social Security works the same way, except that the “in-
vestors” have no choice. Even Ponzi didn’t force people to in-
vest at the point of a gun. The government does. The law
makes a distinction between fraud and robbery based on
coercion. Since the state has a monopoly on legal coercion,
and can ultimately bring deadly force to bear on those who
resist it, can we call the required “investment” in Social
Security anything less than robbery?
The semantical games don’t end there. The government
says that employees pay the FICA tax and employers match
it. But this is an accounting trick. The economic reality is
that the worker pays it all because the matching payment is
just another cost of labor.
Social Security injures the nation’s economy and there-
fore hurts everyone. If the billions drained away by Social
Security every year were put to productive use, our economy
would be much less troubled than it is today. Instead, capital
is wasted on nonproductive government projects.
Keynesians tell us that government spending creates jobs
and stimulates the economy. But they forget to look at how
the money would have been used otherwise. Taxation de-
stroys jobs, and by taxing employment, Social Security
creates unemployment and hurts small business.
What should we do about this dinosaur in our midst?
Several plans have been offered. Unfortunately they range
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from the patch-up Lee Smith outlined in Fortune last year to
the gradualist scheme offered by Peter Ferrara which calls for
government to force people to invest in a “Financial Security
Account” or stay in the Social Security system. Free market-
eers must oppose both in principle. Only a principled stand
has any chance of surviving the lobbying of the American
Association of Retired Persons.
In the meantime, we should take care of ourselves and not
rely on Social Security, support those who want to change it
for the better, warn of the present system’s dangers and im-
morality, and oppose inflationary fix-it schemes and every
other intervention in the economy. Advancing lasting solu-
tions based on liberty is the only chance we have of abolish-
ing rip-offs like Social Security.