Ellen Canavan: George Will’s bubble
Reading George Will’s Oct. 19 column “Economic equality as moral imperative,” I wondered whether he knows any elderly persons besides those who “after a lifetime of accumulation, are the wealthiest age cohort.”
His description of Social Security and Medicare as “the entitlement state existing primarily to transfer wealth ... regressively from the working age population to the retired elderly” falls way short of the actual facts.
Social Security exists to keep senior citizens out of poverty, it lifts 15 million elderly out of poverty and close to half the elderly would be poor without Social Security, which they have earned over their lifetimes by paying into the system and loaning the government their money.
Maybe Will should find some seniors who live outside of his elite comfort zone. I can refer him to many.
Ellen Canavan
Cary
This story was originally published October 19, 2015 at 4:42 PM with the headline "Ellen Canavan: George Will’s bubble."