CVPV

As they progress through college, women are more likely to worry about saving data in their computers than saving money for retirement. Yet doing something about the latter will be far more important in the long term. That’s because the federal government’s pot of retirement savings, called Social Security, is heading toward bankruptcy and will be licked clean far before college students reach retirement age.

Put another way, from the very first day a college student earns a paycheck, she will contribute to Social Security a chunk of money that will get spent before she reaches retirement age. And by the time she does reach 65, there won’t be enough money coming into Social Security to support her.

Presidents and other baby-boomer politicians going back a decade or more have known this, yet have failed to fix Social Security. (Could it have something to do with the fact that Social Security bankruptcy will hit in about 2020, after many babyboomers collect their dough?) President George W. Bush’s reform proposals, for their part, have been stymied by opponents who argue the details and ignore how desperately the system needs to be fixed.

College women (and men!) can vote and need to make themselves heard. It’s essential that they demand not only reform proposals, but actual reforms, and that these changes be implemented in the coming years, to leave enough time for the college-age generation to store enough retirement money away. If college students don’t obtain this reform, the bankruptcy of the Social Security fund will leave them further up the creek than a faulty hard-drive ever could. There’s a precedent for this kind of activism by young people. Student outrage at deficit-spending in past decades—and the risk that it would leave the young generation indebted—helped push the federal government to begin paying down the debt.

So here are some basic demands on Social Security. Many experts believe the government should take certain straightforward steps, such as:

§ End the charade of telling young people, through mailed letters, that they will receive a monthly Social Security check when they retire. Unless Social Security is reformed, that check won’t come. Why not tell them that in the letter?

§ End the charade of arguing that Social Security money is the government’s money, not the taxpayers’. Not only does it come right out of citizens’ paychecks, but thanks to government mismanagement, it accrues less than keeping money in a plain old savings account.

§ Free younger Americans to save on their own. For instance, give them a tax break on part of the paycheck that traditionally would go to social security, and allow them to save/invest it themselves. But make them save it.

§ Set up government oversight of a few investment programs, so that people who aren’t sure about investing the money on their own can do so with some help. For example, the government could pick a few mutual funds that manage retirement money very conservatively. Such programs already exist in Chile and Canada.

The longer politicians argue about Social Security reform, the faster today’s college students will careen towards an impoverished retirement. The federal government has to fix this—and fast.