Reading up on Social Security in the US on Wikipedia. This caught my attention:
“Social Security is currently estimated to keep roughly 40 percent of all Americans age 65 or older out of poverty.”
Only 40%? That seems horribly low. The 65> demographic includes about 39 million, of which 40% is 15.6 million – a sizable number of Americans. But what about the other more massive group of 23.4 million elderly?
Don’t forget: “poverty” is defined arbitrarily. It’s simply a number the government comes up with. How many of those 40% are living just above the line of poverty?
I don’t know the reasons why only 40% are helped (I should probably finish reading the article). To me, however, there is no reason it should not be higher; much closer to %99.
Then again, who knows how much we’d all be taxed. What services would have to cut in order to fund such a vision.
Logical Liberal, coming into play.
Perhaps at least 60%. 75% would be a great achievement. Any amount where at least over half of the demographic is kept out of poverty.
Just don’t see how 23.4 million Americans, elderly at that, end up in poverty in this country. I thought we were better than that.
