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A TRUTH-BASED FABLE · IN MY OWN WORDS

Supercharged Social Security — the road NOT taken by Social Security

THE FABLE

My tale begins at birth.

In the maternity ward, a man said to my folks, “I’m from Social Security. We’re testing a new plan. Supercharged Social Security. It’ll invest for Junior in a stock-market index, reinvest dividends, and hold for retirement.”

My mom said, “Who’ll pay?”

The man said, “You two. This month. Total cost for Minimum benefits: $332. For Supercharged Social Security Super benefits: $940. Benefits could start at 60. Guaranteed! Or start later, for even better benefits.”

My parents chose Supercharged Social Security “Super benefits.” They loved me — and they were smart.

Spoiler alert

Market history shows, from my birth month, $940 in a market-indexed pension could have grown to $1 mil. in 60 years. That could have mushroomed to $8.5 mil. by year-end 2025! For ALL newborns beginning 1935, Supercharged Social Security would have been virtually risk free.

Back to the fable. What would Supercharged Social Security mean for me? Fast forward to age 60. My starting Supercharged Social Security benefit: $62,000 a year, with COLAs to follow. (Minimum, from $332 at birth? $21.9k to start.)

I had thought my friends’ FICA could put them on Easy Street. But their legacy benefits — at 62 — would be a QUARTER of mine — at 60. Huge difference! Unlike them, I’d NEVER pay a penny of FICA! But they & their employers would have paid $100,000, combined. Imagine!

I can laugh now.

But long before retirement, I had feared my parents’ $940 was “at-risk.” Nope.

History shows market risk from annual investment in an Supercharged Social Security-type large-stock index since 1814 always declined & vanished after 14 years — or less.

My chart, 'Large-Company Stock Index — Designed to Replicate S&P 500 Index': annualized total percent return with dividends reinvested, plotted against years invested from 1 to 85, 1814–2018. Three series — Highest, Average and Lowest. The Lowest series starts near −45% for a one-year holding period and climbs steeply, crossing zero at about fourteen years, then settles near +6% for the longest periods. Average holds near +9% at every length. A yellow bar labeled 'At-risk ruler' runs along the zero line from year one to about year fourteen, marking the span in which the worst case was still a loss.
Highest, lowest and average annualized total return by years invested, 1814–2018. The yellow bar is my “at-risk ruler” — it stops where the worst case stops losing money. Run against the 1871-onward record this site publishes, the same crossing lands a year later, at fifteen.From my research files

The story? A mere fable. But my $62,000-a-year pension? Plus COLAs? And NO FICA? Stock-market history says Supercharged Social Security COULD have made that happen. With virtually ZERO risk!

Where would YOU be if lawmakers had created a ZERO “risk” plan like Supercharged Social Security — for ALL of us?

Find out.

Use our CalculatorRead the 12 steps

The moral?

German philosopher Hegel said:

History teaches us that man learns nothing from history.

Sadly, that’s why Social Security’s brain trust failed to create Supercharged Social Security.

Two things this fable does not mean.

First: this is NOT privatization. Junior’s pension is a share of one pooled Supercharged Social Security Trust Fund — the same fund your grandparents paid into. Social Security would manage it. Not YOU. It’s that simple. Second: today’s Social Security is not about to vanish.

2033
The OASI trust fund is depleted in 2033
Source: 2025 Trustees Report via CRS IF13045 v.5 (congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF13045/IF13045.5.pdf) · R-001
81%
About 81 cents of every scheduled dollar keeps flowing
Source: Same CRS IF13045 / 2025 Trustees · R-002

The fable is about the gap between good and possible.

Every figure in this fable is my own estimate, worked out in my own research files. My road-not-taken tables are in The Proposal.