While you have a very good solution to the traditional SS recipient, retirees aren’t the major problem, SSI and SSD are the problem.
There’s plenty of waste, fraud and abuse. For example, if you have a misbehaving “ADHD” kid you’ll get $500-600 per month. Children with true, severe disabilities don’t cost the parents anything with Medicaid, school based services, etc...but they’re still getting a fat check each month.
SSI should be abolished completely, it’s welfare, plain and simple. SSD is like a premature retirement but the dirty little secret is...no matter how “disabled” you are, if you’re persistent and see the process through three times, you’re pretty much guaranteed an award.
Granted, it’s not much (the amount you get is based on the amount you’ve earned so the harder/longer workers get more) but the prospect of a government check for the rest of your life while you sit around doing nothing is attractive to a whole bunch of people, unfortunately. Particularly when you combine it with your Section 8 housing, SSI for several kids, the EITC if someone works a little bit, food stamps, subsidized day care that helps you get the rugrats out of your hair even though you don’t go to work, free breakfasts and lunches at school...you get the picture.
Also did you know if you voluntarily retire and begin drawing SS while you have minor child(ren) your child(ren) will receive a check without reducing your benefit? What is that all about? Just extra money being paid out!!
What you said is true, but prying largess from the hands of recipients is politically difficult, especially if they have enough money to fight you. So the trick is to wean the wealthy ones off of it without screwing them over.
Later, you can then dispense with the more harmless parasites, because they are less likely to mount an effective defense.
However, after all is said and done, there are still a lot of people out there who are intellectually incapable of managing their own retirement. And there are so many of them that they cannot be ignored, left to become public charges. So for them, a federally managed retirement, using their money to pay for just their retirement, is a reasonably sound idea, and politically possible as well, as long as it is well managed.
Which means it has to be a public-private deal, with no external funds, and government unable to dip into the till. And out of the hands of fast money types as well. This would be the best outcome for everyone concerned. Giving the minimum wage workers a retirement that they themselves pay for, not taxpayers.