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As the United States marks its 250th birthday, Straight Arrow is taking a fresh look at the\u00a0institutions, systems and social contracts<\/a>\u00a0that shaped modern America \u2014 and the pressures now testing them.<\/p>\n Nearly a century ago, in the darkest hours of the Great Depression, America made a promise to its citizens.<\/p>\n Social Security, one of the cornerstones of President Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal, would provide for those who were sick, disabled or simply too old to work.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can never insure 100% of the population against 100% of the hazards and vicissitudes of life,\u201d Roosevelt said<\/a> as he signed the Social Security Act into law on Aug. 14, 1935, \u201cbut we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t \n\t\t\tDownload the SAN app today to stay up-to-date with Unbiased. Straight Facts\u2122.\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tPoint phone camera here\t\t<\/p>\n Nine decades later, Millennials and Gen Z are skeptical of America\u2019s ability to keep that promise. Social Security benefits could face significant cuts in just six years if Congress fails to advance legislation addressing the system\u2019s financial crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the nation\u2019s youngest workers oppose higher mandatory federal payroll taxes to make Social Security solvent \u2014 and they\u2019re counting on themselves, not the government, to fund their retirements.<\/p>\n Lillian Zhang, a 26-year-old Google employee and part-time online financial educator, is one of those workers. She teaches the 248,000 followers of her Instagram<\/a> and TikTok<\/a> accounts how to invest their money, travel affordably and make financially sound decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s a big concept in general that a lot of young people are aware of,\u201d she told Straight Arrow. \u201cObviously, there is probably a subset of people who don\u2019t have the means to save for retirement and probably not really thinking about it, but I think there\u2019s a spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n About two-third of Americans under 30 think Social Security won\u2019t exist when they retire, according to a survey by the Cato Institute<\/a>, a libertarian think tank.\u00a0<\/p>\n People aged 65 and older favored higher payroll taxes to keep Social Security alive, the survey found. Gen Z, with retirement more than three decades away, prefers reducing benefits to raising taxes to preserve a program they may never be able to take advantage of.<\/p>\n No single solution can fix the problem, but that shouldn\u2019t keep Congress from finding a remedy, said Wendell Primus, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be rescued and it should be rescued,\u201d he said. \u201dAnd it will be rescued.\u201d<\/p>\n Social Security faced insolvency before\u00a0<\/p>\n Trustees for the Social Security Administration warned recently that retirement benefits would begin to decline around July 1, 2032, with retirees seeing a 22% cut in their monthly payments. That could be devastating for millions of Americans \u2014 especially the one-fourth of retirees who receive 90% of their income from Social Security, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities<\/a>.<\/p>\n Resolving shortfalls in Social Security\u2019s trust funds could be achieved through raising taxes, cutting benefits for current recipients or both. A cut to benefits would affect the nation\u2019s 62.3 million retirees<\/a>, while a payroll tax hike would affect more than 163 million workers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou either gotta raise taxes or cut benefits, and no taxpayer likes to have their benefit cut or their tax increased,\u201d Primus said. \u201cBut that\u2019s what it\u2019s gonna take. There\u2019s no magic bullet here.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time Social Security has faced insolvency. A series of amendments in 1983 \u2014 which increased payroll taxes, delayed cost-of-living adjustments and raised the retirement age \u2014 helped safeguard the safety net for more than four decades, according to the Social Security Administration<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a 2022 Congressional Research Service<\/a> report, economist Barry Huston urged lawmakers to act sooner than later to implement gradual changes needed to soften the blow. Older Americans are already adjusting by delaying their retirement to ensure larger benefits: New York Life, an insurance and financial services company, said in a September 2025 report<\/a> that about 35% of adults have delayed or expressed intentions to delay their retirements because of to insufficient savings, inflation and a changing economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Primus pitched a solution during a Senate Budget Committee hearing<\/a> in March. He proposed increasing the cap on earnings subject to payroll taxes to $360,000 over six to seven years, raising the payroll tax from 12.4% to 12.6% and increasing the full retirement age<\/a> from 67 to 70 for men making more than $76,692 annually and for women making more than $50,688 a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n The AARP, one of the nation\u2019s leading advocacy organizations for retirees, staunchly opposes<\/a> any benefit cuts or raising the retirement age.<\/p>\n AARP <\/a>asked Congress<\/a> this spring to \u201cfocus on solutions that will guarantee full, unreduced payments for today\u2019s seniors and for future generations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The group endorsed plans from the National Academy of Social Insurance<\/a>, a social welfare advocacy organization, to increase payroll taxes or redirect existing taxes to the program\u2019s trust fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n Martina McLennan, a spokesperson for the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Straight Arrow the country is past the point of finding a fix palatable to everyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere are still solutions that are possible,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to really take Congress to act sooner rather than later, because the longer they take to act, the harder those solutions are going to become and the more expensive they\u2019re going to become.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawmakers have introduced<\/a> legislation to address pending benefits cuts, but the bills have languished in committees.<\/p>\n And now, the nation\u2019s youngest workers are taking their retirement into their own hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of younger people are paying more attention to what\u2019s available to them, tools and things to protect themselves,\u201d said Zhang, the online financial educator.<\/p>\n Gen Z goes all-in Roth IRAs<\/p>\n An increasingly popular tool for young adults is a Roth IRA. It\u2019s a retirement account that allows users to set aside money after they have already paid taxes, enabling them to withdraw their original investments penalty-free at any point.<\/p>\n Gen Z workers have increased their IRA contributions by 65% over the past year, according to Fidelity<\/a>, a wealth management and investment firm. Fidelity said 21.4% of Gen Z workers are contributing to a Roth IRA.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRoth is a fairly newer vehicle and has been marketed very heavily, especially on channels that young people tend to follow, such as TikTok and YouTube,\u201d said Romina Bocci, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute. \u201cSo some of this is also the rise of the influencer economy driving young people to invest in Roth accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n Boccia told Straight Arrow that members of Gen Z have established themselves as risk takers and are more likely to gamble on prediction markets, sports betting and meme stocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"QR](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/app-download-block-qr-code.png\")
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Courtesy of Lillian Zhang<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-514685906.jpg\")
In 1935, workers sorted through wage records to establish individual Social Security accounts. (Bettman\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n