Essay 15

a) An entitlement program is any government program that people are entitled to benefit from, like social security.
b) The primary source of revenue for social security is taxes, specifically the social security tax which all workers pay into.
c) One threat to the future of social security should trends continue is that there will not be enough people paying into social security which could lead to an inability to pay people out when their time comes.
d) One demographic trend that threatens social security is a larger proportion of old people who get social security. This means that the ratio of people paying in to the ration of people getting paid is becoming worse and leading to exactly what I discussed in part c.
e) If eligibility age were raised there would be more people paying in and less people getting paid by social security. This would tip the scales in favor of a more sustainable program.

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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