Smith, a Rand Corp. specialist on the economics of Social Security, lives in California, but he grew up in New York and remembers Joe DiMaggio's advertisements for Bowery Savings Bank in the 1960s and '70s. Today, as Smith looks ahead, he says that restoring that habit on a national scale is a critical component for stabilizing retirement income for a generation of baby boomers whose large numbers threaten the future of the Social Security system. It is a common theme in the Social Security debate. Think of a Retirement Security System, not a Social Security System, experts say. That may be as clear a vision of the future of Social Security as anyone can muster.
Forecasts divide into two major camps, each reflecting the agendas of their proponents.
Others suggest prolonging the system's solvency by decreasing benefits or raising the minimum age, now scheduled to rise from 65 to 68 by 2030. But even the slightest suggestion of tinkering creates instant and loud opposition. Some doomsayers simply expect the entire system to collapse before a paralyzed central government can agree on how to save it. The heart of the current debate is whether Social Security will remain the working generation's contract to provide for their parents' retirement, or whether it will represent a version of an individual savings account, to be reclaimed by the worker and his family after retirement. The uncertainty is reflected in public opinion polls that show half the nation doubts that Social Security will survive to provide them with retirement benefits.