Obviously you can, because real per-capita GDP has more than doubled in forty years. The country is still growing explosively, and can obviously support much hi

Obviously you can, because real per-capita GDP has more than doubled in forty years. The country is still growing explosively, and can obviously support much higher social security payouts, especially considering we are still spending 1/2 to 2/3 as much on defense which is mostly a monetary black hole (your returns on investment there are probably the lowest of all state expenditures). So it is important to remember that social security is not a black hole. Some people like my dad exclusively invests his, but for a lot of people it is immediately spent in the economy. The greatest economic stimulus you can produce is direct cash injection into the poor - it produces immediate real goods demand to be met. It is also why I always go crazy when people talk about "affording" a universal basic income. It is wealth redistribution, not destruction. Wealth is destroyed when it is dedicated to unproductive things, like means testing or incredible bureaucracy. The only risk UBI has is that you redistribute enough that the massive demand increase from the poor does not offset the slowdown of investment at the high end. Its a progressive curve - its not about affordability, it is about finding the maxima that matches peak social stability, equality, and individual prosperity against economic growth and investment.