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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
by 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 agoI 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).