Essay 15

In recent decades, entitlement programs have constituted a substantial portion of the United States federal budget.  An entitlement program is a government program providing mandated/ guaranteed/ required benefits to those who meet eligibility requirements or qualifications.  Social Security is the largest entitlement program in the US.  The primary source of revenue for Social Security is payroll taxes or taxes based on earned income which would be taken out of legal paychecks.  One major threat to the future of this program may be that outputs will start to exceed inputs, or they may ultimately run out of money.  This is also connected to the threat that their will be too many old people due to the baby boom and older generations living longer, but the number of the workers funding the social security are not increasing along with the older generation.  This results in an unequal ratio and that will result in less money paid in, but more money needing to be paid out.  If people were to work longer, less money would be payed out, more money would be payed in and the reserve would not decline as rapidly as predicted.

2006-2 In recent decades, entitlement programs have constituted a substantial portion of the United States federal budget. Social Security is the largest entitlement program in the US. From the information in the chart above, and your knowledge of the US government and politics, perform the following tasks.
(a) define entitlement program
(b) What is the primary source of revenue for the Social Security program
(c) Identify one threat to the future of the Social security program should the trends depicted in the chart continue
(d) Describe on demographic trend that threatens the future of the Social Security program and explain how it is responsible for the threat that you identified in (c )
(e) Explain how any one of the trends in the chart above would change if the age of eligibility for social security were raised.

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