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Some historical perspective: My understanding is that when Social Security was created, the average life expectancy was 67. While this is true, I think it's a

Some historical perspective: My understanding is that when Social Security was created, the average life expectancy was 67. While this is true, I think it's a misleading statistic. The relevant figure, it seems to me, is not life expectancy at birth, but life expectancy at age 65 (because the latter determines social security outlay). In the 1930s, a 65 year old could expect to live for about 12 more years, while in 2010, life expectancy was about 18 years. That's a considerably smaller increase than life expectancy at birth during that time. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/as116/as116_V.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/as116/as116_V.html

DoreenMichele 8y ago
I will note that my framing comes directly from something I saw somewhere. So my understanding is that it was intended a certain way. There's a great book called How to lie with statistics. It makes a lot of excellent points about how framing the same data differently can support different conclusions. So, some thoughts: Law makers who passed it may not have realized the average 65 year old would live another 12 years. They may have only known average life expectancy was 67. Six years longer may not sound like much, but it's 50 percent longer. That can have significant repercussions.
- microtherion 8y ago
  Law makers who passed it may not have realized the average 65 year old would live another 12 years. Interesting theory, but that mistake should have become evident by the late 1940s and led to a lot of debate, and I am not aware that there was one. Six years longer may not sound like much, but it's 50 percent longer. And labor productivity has more than doubled during that time, so society should be in a vastly better position to afford social security. I think it's important to see past the framing of economic inevitability and realize that there is simply a well organized political movement that does not WANT there to be retirement security for the general population, and because that's not really a popular political goal, the framing is instead that social security is unaffordable.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Interesting theory, but that mistake should have become evident by the late 1940s and led to a lot of debate, and I am not aware that there was one. I've just woke up and replying is probably a mistake simply because I just woke up. But I have seen no evidence that people routinely rethink such things when it becomes obvious that the original logic was flawed and I've seen tons of evidence that the original logic gets wholly forgotten and, now that the thing exists, it frequently just grows larger thanks to some variation of entropy. People can't even remember why Liberal Arts got called that to begin with and I get told that's just my weird ass and utterly unfounded opinion and then I have to go looking for a source to cite to show that what I'm saying is historical fact and the actual origin story. I read a well documented book on the history of minimum wage law in the US. It is unfortunate that I can't recall the name and can't find it again in spite of looking because it asserted that it was passed to eliminate the racist practice of paying blacks half as much as whites in the deep south because these days everyone seems to think minimum wage is some sort of racist policy that keeps people of color oppressed somehow. I can't find my source to try to show otherwise. In the 5+ years I had a corporate job, some practice changed but the term used remained the same such that new people found it baffling. Older employees had trouble explaining it. Everything I have ever experienced in my life indicates people are truly terrible at remembering why decisions got made that way to begin with, even in their own life. They date someone for X reason, X reason stops being relevant but now they are married and leaving isn't easy. Unless they are so utterly miserable that dismantling their life sounds better than continuing to live with this person, they stay. And the beat goes on.
Asooka 8y ago
Yes, but a lot more working-age adults today make it to 65 than 100 years ago, which is a relevant statistic. Previously you could count on a bigger portion of workers dying before reaching retirement, so you had a smaller pool of retirees to take care of. Today practically every worker makes it to retirement age.
- microtherion 8y ago
  I don't have the exact actuarial data (nor the expertise to convert into numbers), but eyeballing figure 5 here: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Body.html https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Body.html It appears that in 1950, a 20 year old had about a 73% chance of living to 65. In 2000, that likelihood was about 83%. A nice improvement, to be sure, but not an enormous increase. (My point being that if somebody dies before ever paying into SS, they make no difference to the accounting one way or the other, and a lot of the change in life expectancy was indeed based on reducing mortality at younger ages).

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I will note that my framing comes directly from something I saw somewhere. So my understanding is that it was intended a certain way. There's a great book called How to lie with statistics. It makes a lot of excellent points about how framing the same data differently can support different conclusions. So, some thoughts: Law makers who passed it may not have realized the average 65 year old would live another 12 years. They may have only known average life expectancy was 67. Six years longer may not sound like much, but it's 50 percent longer. That can have significant repercussions.

microtherion 8y ago
Law makers who passed it may not have realized the average 65 year old would live another 12 years. Interesting theory, but that mistake should have become evident by the late 1940s and led to a lot of debate, and I am not aware that there was one. Six years longer may not sound like much, but it's 50 percent longer. And labor productivity has more than doubled during that time, so society should be in a vastly better position to afford social security. I think it's important to see past the framing of economic inevitability and realize that there is simply a well organized political movement that does not WANT there to be retirement security for the general population, and because that's not really a popular political goal, the framing is instead that social security is unaffordable.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Interesting theory, but that mistake should have become evident by the late 1940s and led to a lot of debate, and I am not aware that there was one. I've just woke up and replying is probably a mistake simply because I just woke up. But I have seen no evidence that people routinely rethink such things when it becomes obvious that the original logic was flawed and I've seen tons of evidence that the original logic gets wholly forgotten and, now that the thing exists, it frequently just grows larger thanks to some variation of entropy. People can't even remember why Liberal Arts got called that to begin with and I get told that's just my weird ass and utterly unfounded opinion and then I have to go looking for a source to cite to show that what I'm saying is historical fact and the actual origin story. I read a well documented book on the history of minimum wage law in the US. It is unfortunate that I can't recall the name and can't find it again in spite of looking because it asserted that it was passed to eliminate the racist practice of paying blacks half as much as whites in the deep south because these days everyone seems to think minimum wage is some sort of racist policy that keeps people of color oppressed somehow. I can't find my source to try to show otherwise. In the 5+ years I had a corporate job, some practice changed but the term used remained the same such that new people found it baffling. Older employees had trouble explaining it. Everything I have ever experienced in my life indicates people are truly terrible at remembering why decisions got made that way to begin with, even in their own life. They date someone for X reason, X reason stops being relevant but now they are married and leaving isn't easy. Unless they are so utterly miserable that dismantling their life sounds better than continuing to live with this person, they stay. And the beat goes on.

Asooka 8y ago

Yes, but a lot more working-age adults today make it to 65 than 100 years ago, which is a relevant statistic. Previously you could count on a bigger portion of workers dying before reaching retirement, so you had a smaller pool of retirees to take care of. Today practically every worker makes it to retirement age.

microtherion 8y ago
I don't have the exact actuarial data (nor the expertise to convert into numbers), but eyeballing figure 5 here: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Body.html https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Body.html It appears that in 1950, a 20 year old had about a 73% chance of living to 65. In 2000, that likelihood was about 83%. A nice improvement, to be sure, but not an enormous increase. (My point being that if somebody dies before ever paying into SS, they make no difference to the accounting one way or the other, and a lot of the change in life expectancy was indeed based on reducing mortality at younger ages).