Matt Yglesias

Happy Birthday Social Security

It was 73 years ago today that President Franklin Roosevelt signed the legislation establishing the Social Security program. For each and every one of those 73 years, Social Security has been a pay-as-you-go public pension scheme in which the current generation of workers’ taxes go to pay benefits to present retirees and, in exchange, future generations of workers will pay for current workers when they retire. It’s been effective at meetings its goals and broadly popular: