Social Security: How Legislation Designed To Boost Seniors Could Be Hurting Gen Z and Millennials
Written by
Vance Cariaga
Edited by
Daria Uhlig
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One recurring theme of proposed Social Security reforms is that somebody is going to have to make sacrifices to prop up the program — and most of those sacrifices will fall on the shoulders of millennials, Gen Z and younger generations.
This dynamic is evident in proposals to raise the full retirement age only for Americans who are in their 30s or younger so that older Americans won’t take an immediate hit to their benefits. Other proposals are to gradually phase in benefit cuts so seniors won’t feel the pinch — but younger folks will.
That’s not the only way legislation designed to help seniors has had a negative impact on millennials and Gen Zers. According to a 2023 column in The Hill, Congressional budgeting priorities over the past several decades have favored older Americans at younger generations’ expense.
The column was written by Eugene Steuerle, fellow and co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. In it, he cited Congressional Budget Office data from 1979 to 2019 showing that the elderly and non-elderly have “switched statuses” when it comes to who is richer and who is poorer. Today, younger Americans fall into the latter category, which goes against trends from previous generations.
“It’s not hard to understand how this happened,” Steuerle wrote. “Most growth in federal government spending over that 40-year period went for Social Security and healthcare (mainly Medicare). Ultimately, the money must come from somewhere. Households pay for benefit expansions in Social Security and Medicare not just with their current taxes. They pay through federal debt left to their children and cutbacks in other areas of spending.”
As an example, Steuerle pointed to last year’s Congressional budget compromise to avoid a government shutdown. That deal cut spending on some programs while protecting Social Security and healthcare programs that mainly benefit seniors.
Meanwhile, government spending on programs for the elderly has “absorbed an increasing share of national income ever since 1940. And it is scheduled to do so as far as the eye can see,” Steuerle warned.
It might just be a coincidence, but recent data show that older Americans tend to have more money for discretionary spending than their younger cohorts. As CNN reported last summer, research from Bank of America found that a significant gap in spending recently has opened between older and younger generations.
“Baby Boomers are living it up, splurging on cruises and restaurants,” CNN reported, while “younger Americans are struggling just to keep up” due to high housing costs and the return of federal student loan payments,.
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