You only partly receive benefits based on having paid in. You can also receive benefits based on a live, dead, or even ex-spouse having paid in. Or a live or de

You only partly receive benefits based on having paid in. You can also receive benefits based on a live, dead, or even ex-spouse having paid in. Or a live or dead parent. Given that some people don't qualify at all it isn't a particularly well designed anti-poverty measure. You can say that it isn't supposed to be until you are blue in the face, but that's certainly how it was and continues to be sold. Given that if you died at age 60 without a wife or children your estate gets nothing, it isn't a particularly well designed mandatory savings program. That is another way it was and continues to be sold. Given that there's no underwriting it isn't a well designed insurance program (annuity). Like our tax advantaged retirement savings options -- with its grab bag of different programs -- or Medicare with its bizarre A/B/D distinction (not to mention C) no one would actually set out to design a system like social security. People defend it because it is the status quo and they fear the unknown that admitting ought to replaced would open up.