This was a great read for me. Since the time i was in grade school, even teachers were telling me that the social security program won’t be around because there won’t be enough money to pay for it. This is the first time i have read any sort of analysis or looked beyond into this system i was told was broken. Naturally I googled Social Security fund, which brought me to their website https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/fundFAQ.html#&a0=7 . If you look under the tab “Can the social security trust funds remain solvent without making changes to the program” you’ll find three small paragraphs that talk about it and they base these predictions off of predicted demographics. One of the three predictions even mentions that it is possible for the funds to remain solvent for another 75 years. The only thing I can’t figure out is where these funds would go if they got rid of them completely, and who would even want that.

We’ve previously discussed the need for social programs and whether or not they were right. In fact a large part of this class focused on just that, and there were people on both sides. For me this article reiterated the idea that there are people who deserve to have help, and even those opposed to programs such as welfare, have (according to the article) recognised this group of people as well. What really got me thinking about it in a more definable light was the fire insurance analogy, where in we mitigate losses by having everyone pitch in, because eventually it is going to happen. I liked how it showed the uncontrollable part to unemployment, because often times people look at it as something that can be fixed with a lot of effort, which is true in only is some cases. In reality it is near impossible to keep everyone employed 100% of the time. For example during the summer months it would be very foolish for a ski resort in northern michigan to stay open all the time, which leads to seasonal unemployment. It doesn’t mean that those employees are undeserving, because the reality of the matter is that someone has to be there during the winter months. There are people who make the personal decision to sacrifice pay and employment for our society to run smoothly. So it makes sense that those who have the ability to profit (since it is all connected) should help out those who have chosen otherwise. For the record, i don’t believe all cases of unemployment are due to seasonal or frictional unemployment, there are lazy people in every society. I just believe that we have an obligation to those who are really trying to be contributing members.