Social Security - a thought experiment

[timelets]

In 2010, life expectancy at birth looked like this:

	All races			White			Black
Year	Both sexes	Male	Female	Both sexes	Male	Female	Both sexes	Male	Female
2010	78.7	76.2	81.1	79.0	76.5	81.3	75.1	71.8	78.0
2007	77.9	75.4	80.4	78.4	75.9	80.8	73.6	70.0	76.8

In 1935, when the Social Security Administration was established, life expectancy at birth was as follows:

1940	62.9	60.8	65.2	64.2	62.1	66.6	—	—	—
1935	61.7	59.9	63.9	62.9	61.0	65.0	53.1	51.1	55.2
1930	59.7	58.1	61.6	61.4	59.7	63.5	48.1	47.3	49.2

At the time, the retirement age was set at 65, both for men and women. For a white man, that was 4 years above his life expectancy; for a white woman it was equal to her life expectancy. For all intents and purposes, blacks were excluded from the system.

If Social Security were established today under similar asumptions, retirment age would be set at around 80.

upd: I'm currently reading Okun's "The Great Trade-off: Equality and Efficiency. He writes (p. 102)

In terms of public attitudes, social security is probably the greatest success of any major federal expenditure program in American history. And it has brought the nation within sight of ending poverty for the aged.

I believe he wrote it in 1974 when problems with the program didn't look apparent at all.