If Social Security benefits are reduced at some future date it will NOT be an isolated event. It will be a good deal higher on the Richter Scale of Financial Catastophe than the events we are experiencing this week. As a consequence, any investment that you might consider safe would not be safe. Also, if you consider the unfunded liabilities of our government, the unfunded liabilities of the entire Social Security retirement system are not much greater than the unfunded liabilities of Medicare Part D, the prescription drug portion of Medicare. The real elephant in the room is Medicare Parts A and B--- that's more likely where the bomb is going to explode.
Social Security was created in the Leave it to Beaver era, or the Ozzie and Harriet era. Whatever you call it, the system was created when same-sex couples were closeted and when the normative couple had a one earner, a male. As a consequence, the system has all kinds of inequities in which some people pay in a good deal more but can expect less in benefits. So same-sex couples are not the only people who can claim the system is unfair to them.
Over the last 50 years, for instance, millions of married women have joined the work force, making substantial contributions to Social Security. Although they pay the full amount in employment taxes, the majority will gain nothing over a stay-at-home housewife who is eligible for a benefit simply because she is married to a worker. The very best you can say is that the working woman in a household pays dearly for any increase in benefits that she enjoys--- and many enjoy no increase in benefits at all even though they have paid employment taxes for decades.
I guess what I am saying is that same-sex couples will simply have to get in line with others who feel they are mistreated by the rules and regulations of Social Security.
Pragmatically, what same-sex couples need to do is consider life insurance as a tool for providing the survivor benefits that heterosexual couples receive. In other words, same sex couples need to buy life insurance that will provide an income stream for the survivor equal to survivor benefits.
Scott
