Dear Editor:
Recent letters from readers about the Social Security financial problem reflect a misunderstanding of the fundamental problem with the system - a misunderstanding unfortunately that seems to be shared by most of the policy makers.
Our system is a "pay-as-you-go" system - benefits of today's retiree are paid from contributions by today's workers. Maintaining a ratio of covered worker to retirees at close to three to one is critical to maintaining the financial stability of the system.
The problem is this dependency ratio as it is called is on a downward trend. In 2000 the ratio was 3.4 to 1. By 2012 it was down to 2.8. By 2030 - when the system will be insolvent - the ratio is projected to be about 2.0. At two to one the average contribution would be about a third short of what it takes to support one retiree. This translates into a covered worker shortage of about 38 million workers by 2030.
What many experts and policy makers fail to recognize or acknowledge is how this shortage in the pool of covered workers is linked to abortion. In his book "Freakonomics" Steven Levitt proved scientifically that abortion in the 1970s was the main cause of the decline in the pool of criminals in the 1990s. By analogy it follows those abortions since the 1970s would be a main cause of the declining growth rate in the "pool of covered workers" some 20 years later
Based on Levitt's logic and at the U.S. labor force participation rate (62 percent) over 30 million of the covered worker shortage is explained by the more than 50 million abortions since the early 1970s. And if you think the world is overpopulated consider that the entire world's population could fit into the state of Texas and the population density (254) would be less than it is in more than 100 of the 242 countries in the world.
In Macau China where GDP per capita is $28,000 and economic growth over 13 percent the population density is over 52,000.
Obviously there are cultural factors other than abortion that contribute to a declining birth rate including changing attitudes toward marriage and the asset/liability aspect of children. However the reality is that the U.S. Government as one of the key supporters of the abortion industry is supporting the main cause of the financial crisis in the Social Security system.