Nowadays, with millions of folks losing their jobs each month, retirement travel is only a dream. With our financial systems going into the sewer, and the home crisis blowing up around us - these safety nets are becoming more crucial than ever before. A lot of retired women, especially, are just barely able to make ends meet even with the help of Social Security. Primarily, this is because women today are less likely than men to have additional sources of income. Partly due to working less years in the workforce because of child raising responsibilities. And partly because, even while in the work force, women typically are paid less than men. Luckily, this situation seems to be gradually changing,

But even families that don’t necessarily need Social Security to survive are helped by it. In fact, according to independent studies, if the government were suddenly to get rid of Social Security, many retired families would experience a drop in their living standards of 70% or more.

Quite a few people are concerned that the system will not be able to support itself. In fact, there have been circumstances in the past when the amount of dollars paid to recipients surpassed the dollar amount collected through FICA. In these cases, Trust bonds were sold to make up the deficit. Because of circumstances like these, Congress has occasionally increased the percentage of gross income that FICA can collect from salaries. Even these adjustments, however, as the population ages and simultaneously live longer, may not be enough to sustain the system without drastic changes to the system.

The Social Security program is the largest government program of the country - constituting over twenty percent of the federal budget. As some politicians look at cutting the size and expenses of government, this program has an inviting target on its back. To many people, however, the cost of losing this critical system could ultimately be much more than the cost of running budget deficits.