Why young people should support expanding Social Security

During the 1950s-1960s SSA published a series of comic books on Social Security-related topics, in an effort to reach the youth audience, which in those days used comic books as their hottest medium of communication. This comic is from 1956. Original: https://www.ssa.gov/history/john56.html

[The Hill] I’m one of the youngest Millennials, born in 1995. Every day, I work to organize young people to take back our government by electing leaders who will fight for our future instead of for corporate donors. That includes fighting to expand, never cut, Social Security’s modest benefits.

Wall Street and its allies have spent decades attempting to convince my generation that Social Security won’t be there for us—but that’s not true. In fact, Millennials and Gen Zs will rely on our Social Security system even more than our parents and grandparents do.

As long as people are working, Social Security can pay out benefits. It is true that in about 16 years, if Congress does nothing, Social Security will only be able to pay out about 80 percent of promised benefits. That’s definitely something that needs to be addressed—but it’s not a crisis, and it’s certainly not a reason to scrap the powerful economic security system we’ve built over the past 84 years. Instead, we must address wealth inequality and increase retirement security for all generations by giving our system a tune-up.

Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) and over 200 House Democrats have a plan: the Social Security 2100 Act. The 2100 Act would ensure that young people today get our fully earned benefits when we retire.