Proponents of divergent proposals for reforming
Social Security often rest their claims on a set of working hypotheses
about public opinion having to do with low confidence in the future
of Social Security, threatened support for the program, and high
support for privatization. We test these claims using the results
of an exhaustive review of hundreds of separate public opinion
survey items, paying particular attention to survey items worded
in an identical or similar manner over a long period of time.
Our review demonstrates that the three working hypotheses
are substantially overstated. First, the often-cited finding that
young people are more likely to believe in UFOs than to believe
they will get Social Security when they retire is based on a misleading
survey that was discredited by later surveys. Overall public confidence
in 2000 rose by 15 percentage points from the time of the last
survey in 1998 and is higher than it has been in a decade, though
still not as high as Social Security Administration officials
might like. Second, public support for Social Security is high
and has been stable for years in survey after survey. Even in
periods when confidence in the future of Social Security was low,
support was high. Third, the public's attitudes toward Social
Security reforms are not monolithic and provide a set of green,
yellow, and red lights to policymakers. Support for privatization
fades and then turns to opposition when respondents are confronted
with thinking about the "risks" of stock and bond markets
and the costs of transition to a privatized system. However, the
public appears quite supportive of creating a supplemental savings
program outside of Social Security in which individuals could
invest in the stock and bond market. In addition, the public supports
a number of incremental reforms, including reducing benefits to
the affluent and raising the base on which pay-roll taxes are
paid, preferring tax increases over benefit reductions.
Fay Lomax Cook, School
of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University
Lawrence R. Jacobs, Department of Political
Science, University of Minnesota
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