"At the risk of opening up a can of worms, the basic problem (the reduction in the ratio of workers to retirees) is due to a declining birth rate and reflects deliberate decisions made by younger generations either to not have children at all or to limit the number to one. Families used to include 3, 4, 5, or even more children. Now, there are many who have chosen careers or life's luxuries instead of any children at all or even marriage. Those were conscious decisions made by the very generations that will be affected by that reduction in ratio and the chickens are coming home to roost. They will have far reaching effects for generations to come."
I'm 40 years old; my wife is 37. When my wife and I married in 1984, we talked of having five children. We have always believed that if were going to have children, we were going to raise them. To us that meant at least that one of us would be at home at least until they reached school age. We bought our first and only house in 1989, and our first child was born the same year. Our second child was born in 1991; the same year I lost my job. We don't live extravagantly. The only new car we have ever owned was a 1987 Hyundai. In large part our decision not to have more children is the fact that we could not afford to have one of us at home to raise any more children during those critical first five years of life.
High Social Security payroll taxes are a large part of the reason real incomes for younger families have declined since 1973 - even though more households now have two earners instead of just one in 1973. From about 1992 to just last year 1998, we had no health insurance, but we were paying Social Security and Medicare taxes ranging from about $6,000 to $7,500 a year that went to fund benefits for elderly persons who were better off financially than we were.
