Social Security turned just 88 this past year, spry all things considered, especially for a nationally implemented federal institution. The same age as Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, the program was passed during the throes of the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ensure a sense of stability for young people as they age and employed individuals that are unsure of their job’s longevity. Seeking to ensure a level of protection through pensions and unemployment pay, FDR said it would “give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.”
Since then, most Americans have paid taxes towards the program with the promise of receiving payments after they turn 66 or 67 to pave the way to a comfortable retirement. But millennials and Gen Zers have lived under the cloud of the great New Deal program's impending demise essentially all their lives.
