Millions of Americans have spent their working lives paying into Social Security, counting on the government to deliver the retirement benefits they were promised — and that promise isn’t being kept.
BlazeTV host Nick Freitas argues that it’s because Social Security operates less like a traditional retirement account than a system that uses today’s workers’ contributions to pay today’s retirees, leaving future generations to shoulder an increasingly difficult burden.
“There’s been a lot of … Boomers that have said, ‘Well, of course, we, you know, younger people should pay more taxes in order to make sure Social Security is solvent,’” Freitas says.
“Social Security,” Freitas says, “essentially operates like a Ponzi scheme.”
“Now, when I say this, people get mad at me. But I want you to understand why these are the things which are actually going to throw us into a massive fiscal and monetary crisis, because when people paid in, it is perfectly reasonable for somebody that was forced to pay into Social Security their entire life to want to be able to pull from Social Security because they were promised it,” he explains.
“The problem is you were promised a bad program,” he says, “because in a typical retirement program, the money goes into a productive industry. It accrues interest while things are being built and being produced that are actually making the economy better.”
“They act like it’s just another retirement program, but in reality, all the money you put into Social Security was already spent,” he continues.
“It wasn’t sitting somewhere accruing interest. It wasn’t funding productive projects that actually yielded profit. It wasn’t doing any of that. It wasn't doing any of the things a private retirement fund would do for you. It was just paying the people that were already collecting Social Security,” he adds.
This is why he equates it to a “Ponzi scheme.”
“Because now the critical part is we don’t have enough people working. When Social Security was first put into existence, there was something like 45 workers for every one person drawing Social Security,” he explains, noting that “it’s about to be three to one.”
And in addition, Freitas points out that “the left brings in a bunch of people that don’t pay taxes or actually go on to other welfare benefits.”
“Now they’re a net drain on the economy,” he adds.
“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.
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