Or set it up in individual accounts, so that you only get out what you put in.

Right now, this is like people putting money into a extra long CD locked in at whatever US Savings Bonds can offer (3%). That isn't a great deal by percentage rate and for locking in your money over such an extended period of time. Even if it was invested on the market CAUTIOUSLY you could gain at least one or two percent in the interest rate. Doesn't sound like much, but that would be talking about trillions of dollars.

Actually, I can find CD rates at 5% and and jumbo ones at 5.5% apy.

But if it is in the stock market, there is always the chance that if you retire at the wrong time, you've lost the last 10 years of growth.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

I know. There is no easy fix, but we can predict when SS will have less income than outgo. The problem isn't going to go away and we might as well do something about it now. Like I said previously, we need the experts involved not politics (poly=Latin for many, ticks = blood sucking parasites).