Is Social Security Doomed by Contraception and Abortion?

In the July/August, 1996 issue of Culture Wars, I published an article, “Contracepting Social Security,” that used the Social Security Trustees’ reports to document how artificially reduced birthrates had seriously injured Social Security solvency. In that article, I argued that the key to the Ponzi functioning of the Social Security system, and financing of deficits, is an ever-expanding population base. Yet the breakdown of traditional family morality under the influence of sexually permissive thinkers, degenerate politicians, profitable tax-free institutions such as Planned Parenthood and its allies, and proponents of welfare dependency, has practically guaranteed that this will not happen.”

The article went on to state that the “Reagan patch” to Social Security, one that reduced benefits for Boomer retirees by delaying full benefits by two or more years, and established a long-term “reserve” to pay for those benefits by taxing more income, was a “smokescreen.” The reserve has long since been spent, because the money has been invested in special Treasury notes, general obligations of the U.S. government. That means Boomer retirees’ Social Security checks must be paid for by cashing in these obligations, and therefore by raising general revenue (income taxes).

An Alternative Fix

Eleven years ago, there was an alternative “fix” for the system. I discovered that there is a linear relationship between the long-term actuarial balance in the OASI Trust Fund, and female fertility. At that time, if fertility had risen to 3.6 children per woman, and remained at that level for the long run, there would be no deficit in Social Security, and it could have paid out all its obligations. If the fertility rate of 3.6 seemed impossible, I noted that this rate had been reached early in the 1960s, before the birth-control pill and legal abortion eviscerated the fertility rate and birthrates. Those two “devices” literally cut the fertility rate in half over a ten-year period.

Over the past decade, I have continued to monitor the Social Security Trustees’ Reports, as year by year they pushed back their “insolvency date” and yet urged the U.S., public to believe that the system had a long-term problem. In effect, the pushing hack of the insolvency date lulled the public into thinking the problem would go away with time. But the problem was actually getting worse, not better. As Boomers’ incomes improved, Social Security tax revenue increased beyond the expected amounts. All that meant is that the U.S. government’s debt to the Social Security Trust Fund was increasing faster than expected, and that the ultimate collapse of the financing, though delayed, would he more precipitous and harmful than anyone understands.

The Latest Statistics

The most recent (2007) Trustees’ Report reveals, however, a truly alarming situation. It continues to be true that increasing fertility can bail out the system. In fact, fertility has edged up slightly over the past decade. But, when I graphed the effect of fertility on the actuarial balance, something had changed in the ten years since the last thorough analysis. The graphs below show the problem.

The 75-year projections show that an increase in fertility rate to 3.8 children per female will, over 75 years, bring the system into actuarial balance. That is an increase of 0.2 children per female over the 1996 projections. The 50-year projections, however, taking us to the year 2067, show that the fertility rate must increase to 6.9 children per female. The slopes of the curves are now considerably different, because the vast Boomer population is now only one year from retirement on the leading edge (cohort born 1946–7) and about twenty years from retirement on the trailing end.

Fertility Rate Differences

The difference in fertility rate seemed incredible, so I asked the Social Security Administration to corroborate them. In a communication of September 28, 2007, Sheryll Ziporkin, Acting Associate Commissioner in the Office of Public Inquiries, forwarded a communication from the Social Security Actuaries. It is worth quoting in full:

Mr. Cunningham correctly noted that the impact on the summarized cost and income rates and the resulting actuarial balance, given a change in the ultimate TFR [total fertility rare], is much less under the 50 year time horizons than the 75 year time horizon. The primary reason for this is that there is a delay between increased/decreased births and their impact on the finances of the OASDI program. In addition, the ultimate TFR is not reached until the 25th year of the projection period, allowing for a gradual change in the TFR from its current level to the ultimate level.

Higher numbers of births today don’t translate into higher workers for at least 15 years and in general we don’t expect significant changes in the level of taxable payroll until over 20 years after experiencing higher levels of births. Correspondingly, we wouldn’t expect to start seeing higher numbers of retired workers until at least 62 years after first increasing the number of live births.

Thus, while changes in the TFR are a significant driver of the sustainable solvency of the program, their impact is felt much later than when the initial change in the TFR occurs. Therefore, changes in the ultimate TFR have a much larger impact on the 75 year summarized rates than the 50 year summarized rates.

Negative Impacts on Fertility

It is unfortunately true that the homosexual movement, radical feminism, and careerism have had a negative impact on fertility. Still, the primary causes of this solvency-destroying reduction in the birthrate have been contraception and its murderous sequella, abortion. What the latest figures show us is that there literally is no way out in the short term. We have been “consuming the feed corn” too long. Social Security payments to the next two generations of retirees simply cannot be supported, even with an immediate increase in the fertility rate. Ultimately, however, the current generation of young adults must increase its fertility to at least the levels of the early 1960s if there is to be any Social Security system at all.

Patches to Fix Social Security

Is there a short-term patch that could save some portion of Social Security for Boomers, as well as keeping the overall system intact for the generations retiring between 2050 and 2100? There is, but it is radical. The first thing that must be done is to stimulate young families to have children. That requires a massive overturning of-our public school fertility education, which has been aimed at keeping female fertility low and keeping young women in the workforce, and a significant reduction of taxes to fertile couples, so that the more children a family has, the lower is their tax rate. Steve Mosher’s suggestion that we eliminate Social Security taxes for large families is an excellent start.

The second patch, which I have suggested for several years, is that we immediately phase in indexing of Social Security retirement benefits, based on the number of children the retirees have raised to adulthood. There would be a reduction of benefits for anyone with fewer than four children; there would be an increase for anyone with more than that. There is a fundamental fairness in that equation, but to make it palatable, there must be a massive public education campaign to remind Americans of the Ponzi (finance as you go) nature of the system. It is an intergenerational covenant between workers and retirees. If the OASDI system is breaking down, it is because the Boomers and the generation before them have broken the covenant by not having enough children. Logically, then, they must hear the major burden of fixing the system,

Mr. W. Patrick Cunningham received his B.A. and M. A. in theology from St. Mary’s University in Texas. He also earned an M. A. in education from Stanford University.

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