Josh Barro, Columnist

Why Social Security Is the Best Retirement Saving Vehicle

The reason Social Security works so well is that it lacks a fundamental problem that undermines the effectiveness of other retirement vehicles.

March 14, 2013 at 7:47 PM UTC

By Josh Barro

Josh Barro is the lead writer for the Ticker, Bloomberg View's blog on economics, finance and politics. His primary areas of interest include tax and fiscal policy, state and local government, and planning and land use. Previously, Barro was a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a commercial real estate banker at Wells Fargo. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Harvard and lives in Queens, New York.

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Last week I wrote that Social Security is the healthiest component of the U.S.'s retirement saving system and should therefore be expanded. This isn't a popular position; liberals tend to prefer defined-benefit pensions from employers and conservatives defined-contribution accounts, such as 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts. But the reason Social Security works so well is that it lacks a fundamental problem that undermines the effectiveness of these other retirement vehicles.

Both defined-benefit pensions and defined-contribution accounts are based on a shared and problematic premise: It is possible to set aside x percent of today's gross domestic product for retirement and generate retirement income from those savings that exceeds x percent of future GDP. This is to be achieved by investing retirement savings in assets that typically grow at a faster rate than the economy as a whole.