"Unfortunately, the same can't be said for your gener-ation. Theoretically, Social Security could collapse when today's young workers retire. Politically, however, that calamity is very unlikely. Much more likely is that the rules and regulations will be altered over the years in ways that, quite frankly, no one can now forecast with any degree of certainty.
"Actually, that's not true," he mused. "Forecasters never lack for certainty; it's accuracy that is the scarce commodity."
"Just adding to Roy's point," a till-then very quiet James Murray broke in, "I read an article last week about just this topic. Every analyst quoted agreed with Roy's assertion that allowing Social Security to collapse would be political suicide. However, they also agreed that many changes are going to have to be implemented over the years in order to preserve the system.
"Remember that our aging population means there are going to be fewer and fewer people working to support more and more of us in retirement. The statistics are frightening. By the year 2020, some estimates have only two and a half people working for every one retiree. Fifty years ago, I believe, the ratio was over forty to one!"
"What kind of changes are they anticipating, James?" Cathy asked, as if we couldn't have guessed.
"Everything from higher payroll taxes to reduced benefits, most or all of which will probably become taxable, to the delay of the eligible retirement dates—"
"I'm sure everyone gets the idea," Roy mercifully in-terrupted. "Again, I remind you that the key is this: Re-gardless of whether or not major, and most likely negative, changes are implemented over the years, Social Security