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Reform Thursday: Week Thirteen.

Thursdays are good days for reform, because they fall between Wednesdays and Fridays.

That's why WILLisms.com will display a chart or graph, every Thursday, pertinent to Social Security reform. The graphics are mostly self-explanatory, but we include commentary on some of them where and when necessary.

Yesterday, we noted how Americans, especially younger Americans, are pro-choice on Social Security.

But, how do we know that people, especially younger people, will make the right investment choices? Won't they just take the money and run to Vegas?

Well, no. While personal accounts would offer people options, choices, and individual control, every responsible reform plan would prevent people from footling their retirement money away at an early age.

Ryan Ellis, of Americans for Tax Reform, notes that younger Americans are the most likely age group to hold lifecycle funds (click image for original .pdf):

Lifecycle funds essentially are investment accounts in which, as a worker gets closer to retirement, the account becomes more conservative (more bonds, less stocks). This ensures that a down time in the market just prior to retirement will not hurt an individual's portfolio.

Clearly, younger investors are more pro-choice on Social Security reform, because they understand that personal accounts are not some kind of risky scheme. Rather, the status quo is what is so risky. It is not difficult to choose a safe and secure fund, and thus the "risky scheme" critique of reform is not working.

The original data for this week's graphic comes from workforce.com, which analyzed over 1 million portfolios for their study (click here for the full results in .pdf format).

Previous Reform Thursday graphics can be seen here:

-Week One.
-Week Two.
-Week Three.
-Week Three, bonus.
-Week Four.
-Week Five.
-Week Six.
-Week Six, bonus.
-Week Seven.
-Week Seven, bonus.
-Week Eight.
-Week Nine.
-Week Ten.
-Week Eleven.
-Week Twelve.

Tune into WILLisms.com each Thursday for more important graphical data supporting Social Security reform.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 April 2005 11:27 AM

Comments

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at April 28, 2005 02:19 PM