New AP Poll Favors Shoring up Social Security

Those recently polled by Associated Press/GfK support raising taxes over reducing benefits by 53% to 36%.  Similarly, 53% were in favor of raising the retirement age as opposed to 36% who would rather cut benefits.  As the article points out, raising the retirement age is effectively a benefit cut.  However, people are living much longer than they did when the first benefits were paid in the 1940s and Full Retirement Age was initially set at 65.  Today Full Retirement Age has only moved to 66 and won't get to 67 for another 15 years.  Life expectancy back in the 1940s was closer to 65.  Today a 62 year old male has a median life expectancy of 82 and for a female it is 85. 

The poll, conducted in August, found that majorities of all parties (including Independents) favored raising the retirement age over cutting benefits.  Majorities of Democrats and Independents preferred raising taxes over cuts, while a majority of Republicans wanted the opposite.  Interestingly, similar results ran across different generations with one exception: younger people were far less likely to be confident that Social Security will be there for them (20% of voters under 35) whereas those older felt it would be there (55% of those over 65).  Overall only "...30 percent said it was very likely or extremely likely they will be able to rely on Social Security." 

Sadly, this low level of confidence in Social Security is not so surprising given the number of politicians on both sides of the aisle who are prone to make hysterical comments about the system, arguing it is a "Ponzi scheme" (Republican Governor Rick Perry) or that it's going to "fall off a cliff" (Democratic Senator Dick Durban).  Hopefully the attitudes reflected in this poll will give politicians of all stripes the backbone to step up and fix the system while such a fix can still be implemented gradually over many years, even decades.  The solution will undoubtedly lay in a set of modifications that combine benefit preservation and modest cuts - something we used to call compromise.  The sooner the better if it means that the public will come to realize that Social Security will be there for them; not just for seniors entering retirement but also for those just entering the workforce.