ANALYSIS
The data room.
Every chart, statistic, and line of arithmetic behind this site — drawn from my research files and the pinned public datasets the calculator runs on. Nothing on this page is fetched from the web; every number traces to a register row you can audit.
THE MARKET RECORD
What patient money has actually done
The whole argument rests on one property of broad-market investing: over long holding periods, the American market has never failed a patient investor. One dollar in January 1871 grew to about $1.06 million by January 2026 — about $40,600 after inflation.
This is my central exhibit, rebuilt from scratch on licensing-cleared data so you can check it: a one-year bet on stocks is a coin flip; a working lifetime in stocks has never lost. Social Security’s horizon is the longest in American finance — a worker taxed at 20 pays for a check at 70 — yet the trust fund is barred from holding a single share.
THE HUMAN STAKES
Longer lives, a lower floor
Two series from my files frame why the funding model matters. People collect far longer than the program’s designers planned for — and the official poverty floor beneath them is low. Poverty among Americans 65 and older fell from 35.2% in 1959 to 10.2% in 2022 — Social Security’s great achievement, and unfinished business: one retiree in ten is still below the line. Why that floor has never broken is the subject of Legacy System Flaws.
THE ARITHMETIC
The numbers the plan stands on
The honest baseline first: the retirement trust fund runs low in 2033, after which continuing payroll taxes still cover about 81 cents of every scheduled dollar. The 75-year gap is 3.82% of taxable payroll — fixable today by a 3.65-point payroll-tax hike or a 22.4% across-the-board cut. The plan argues for a third road.
Worked examples you can re-run
These are the calculator’s golden test cases — hand-worked, locked in the test suite, and re-derived on every data refresh: $1 invested in January 1960 grew to $470.42 by January 2022 ($49.03 in 1960 dollars). $250 at a 1990 birth grew to $10,359.02 by 2026. $50 a month from 1980 through 2019 — $24,000 in — became $361,333.17.
Data values: the poverty floor over time
U.S. Census weighted-average annual thresholds, single person 65+, nominal dollars — from the my files (R-041). The plan’s floor doubles the current line.
| Year | Threshold, single 65+ | Threshold, single under 65 | CPI-U (1982–84=100) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | $1,397 | $1,503 | 29.2 |
| 1970 | $1,861 | $2,010 | 38.8 |
| 1980 | $3,949 | $4,290 | 82.4 |
| 1990 | $6,268 | $6,800 | 130.7 |
| 2000 | $8,259 | $8,959 | 172.2 |
| 2010 | $10,458 | $11,344 | 218.1 |
| 2021 | $12,996 | $14,097 | 271.0 |
THE WALL OF EVIDENCE
The charts I kept on my wall
Long before this site, I kept the market’s long record where I could see it every day — framed on my wall. These are my own copies: the Ibbotson SBBI chart from my MetLife Resources years, and the framed 2015 Morningstar Andex chart that hangs behind me in my portrait on the About Landon B. McDonald page.
“It amazes me how people are often more willing to act based on little or no data than to use data that is a challenge to assemble.”
“Though past performance provides no guarantees, “Reversion to the mean is still the most powerful force in finance.””
THE DATA LIBRARY
What sits behind this site
This site is the public face of a research library I assembled over two decades — about 22,800 cataloged files. The library stays offline; what publishes is only what survives the claims register: primary sources stated as fact, my own projections shown with the working behind them, and nothing in between.
How to audit this page
Every number above carries a register ID (the R-xxx tag on each chart and stat). The register records the source file, the verification status, and the derivation for each one. Market figures are computed from the same pinned Shiller snapshot the calculator uses, with the formula disclosed on the methodology page. Government series (SSA life tables, Census poverty data) are unmodified official exports from my files.