A National Shame and How We Can End It

Many Americans Must Move Abroad in Retirement 

On YouTube, you can watch a video called “10 SAFEST & CHEAPEST Countries to live or Retire on Social Security.” The video is aimed at the millions of Americans who are victims of the chintzy retirement system offered by the United States. After working a lifetime, these people cannot afford to live comfortably in their own country.  So, they move to countries where their money goes further.

This situation is a national shame. How can we, the citizens of the world’s richest country, look each other in the face when we know that millions of our fellow citizens cannot afford to live here on the pittance that our Social Security system provides? How did we get here?

How Did We Arrive in This Shameful Position?

We got here by focusing so exclusively on economic opportunity for individuals that we forgot some basic truths about our society or any society. It is true that for exceptionally brave, intelligent and hardworking people, our society offers good opportunities. The opportunities are not really better than those in other countries as we can see from international statistics on social mobility, but the opportunities here are still good. However, the focus on individual opportunity blinds us to some key facts.

First, the exceptionally brave, intelligent and hardworking people are able to raise their economic status only because most other people do not raise theirs. If all of our warehouse workers, uber drivers and grocery checkout clerks decided to become social workers, engineers, computer programmers, teachers or nurses, there would not be enough jobs for them. We cannot all rise. A few of us can rise but only because the rest of us do not rise.

Second, our economy depends on having warehouse workers, uber drivers and grocery checkout clerks. If by some miracle, they were all able to become engineers, computer programmers, teachers or nurses, our economy would collapse. We need people to fulfill those functions. So, a just and equitable society must provide a way for them to age with dignity. A just and equitable society must not depend on their being able to move elsewhere to live. What would we have to do to make our society just and equitable?

What Can We Do?

First, we would have to pay our workers a decent wage. Workers who are underpaid cannot save for retirement Today, many people who work full-time are paid so poorly that they are eligible for food stamps. Companies like Walmart and Amazon are able to pay their workers a pittance because we the taxpayers supplement the workers’ earnings. We should end this form of corporate welfare and raise the minimum wage so that people can save for their retirement.

Second, we must preserve our Social Security system by collecting Social Security taxes at all wage levels. We should not allow the obscenely high salaries at the top of our income pyramid to go untaxed. Reducing benefits is not an option if we want our society to be just and equitable. Social Security is an important part of most Americans’ retirement incomes, and if we want Americans to be able to live comfortably in retirement in the United States, we must make sure that they have sufficient incomes. The fact that many Americans cannot live comfortably in retirement in their own country is a a national shame. Let's put an end to it.

To put an end to our national shame, we must elect people who understand what is needed, and that means that we must elect Democrats in November. The Republicans have made it very clear that if they are elected, they will cut Social Security benefits and make our situation even more shameful. To end our national shame, vote for Joe Biden and turn our Congress blue in November.