| I understand the perspective and I don't disagree with it, but the problem that spawned social security doesn't go away. It takes a crushing amount of time and money to take care of your aging parents, unless we go down a very dark route, and many elderly are abandoned and it becomes a societal mess. Some approaches I was mulling over: 1. The easiest way is to dilute SS without pushing the years down even further is to remove the required COLA adjustments. It's probably the easiest; also the least imaginative; and may be too slow. 2. The other is what the other poster mentioned: Real social security really comes down to your kids; and this is what I think should be the basis for a "new deal". This has to be done very carefully--I can see so many ways this can be abused--but longer-term I think giving some sort of tax break or even tax credit--based on the social security numbers of the parents--allocated by the parent(s). For the family that can't do it full-time, they can then use that credit or offset to hire some help. Thoughts? Edit: I went through this but with hired help. It was both necessary and awful; and I wish I had an option to help my parents directly full-time, but I didn't have the means at the time (I suppose I still don't). Edit 2: Fixing social security alone doesn't address the wider fiscal problem. It's almost a drop in the bucket. Healthcare is the problem. |