Preserving Social Security: What Students Say

I was intrigued by the front page story in Monday’s Visalia Times-Delta about a recent national poll on Social Security, (Poll: Raise taxes if it will save Social Security) so I decided to conduct the same survey with my students at College of the Sequoias to compare their responses with those of Americans as a whole.  

According to Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher, the AP-GfK survey consisted of two questions, both dealing with proposed solutions to the long-term solvency of the Social Security program.  The first asked whether respondents would rather raise taxes or cut benefits.  53 percent said to raise taxes and 36 percent preferred to cut benefits.  The second question posed a choice between increasing the retirement age and cutting benefits.  53 percent said to raise the retirement age while 35 percent said they would cut monthly payments. 

In both cases, strong majorities, 17 and 18 percent, favored preserving Social Security income for seniors, even at the cost of higher taxes or a longer wait to start collecting benefits.  Since most of my students are between 18 and 25 years old, I was curious whether how they would feel about a program whose benefits are more than 40 years in the future for most of them.  The results were remarkable.

212 students in my History classes took the survey.  I asked them to mark their choices individually without talking them over with classmates.  To question one, 128 students chose Option A, to “Raise the Social Security tax and pay full benefits.”  84 opted for Option B, “Keep Social Security taxes the same and reduce benefits.”  Thus 60 percent preferred the idea of raising the tax to preserve full benefits while 40 percent wanted to cut benefits rather than raise taxes.

On question two, 130 students picked Option A, “Raise the retirement age and pay full benefits.”  82 chose Option B, “Keep the retirement age the same and reduce benefits.”  On this question 61 percent said they would rather raise the retirement age and 39 percent to cut benefits.  The majorities were therefore 20 percent on increasing taxes rather than cutting payments and 22 percent on increasing the eligibility age rather than cutting payments. 

Both results are in line with the national findings, but are held even more strongly.  One might have expected younger people to be less supportive of a system most of them will not benefit from for many years, as compared to a survey population that included senior citizens drawing benefits at the present time and other workers currently much closer to retirement.  One might also have expected opinion in our rather conservative area to be more resistant to a tax increase than in the nation at large.  Neither expectation would have been accurate, at least among this sampling of local college-enrolled young adults.

The students’ choices seem to indicate a strong attachment to Social Security, perhaps partly for the benefit of older relatives and family friends currently receiving benefits, and partly for their own retirement security after their working years are over.  Most are prepared to make sacrifices to keep the system solvent for the foreseeable future.  Among these young adults, Social Security remains a popular program they hope to keep around and viable for a long time to come.