When you are young and in the prime of your life one of the last things you are probably thinking about is old age and retirement, but it’s really never too early to think about securing your future. Today’s Millennial Generation is finding it difficult to get a career started, so topics like retirement and Social Security are not on the front burner, but no generation may have a bigger stake in the healthiness of Social Security than the Millennial Generation.
Past generations have relied upon Social Security in old age even though many of these retirees have additional income from employer pensions, but these days employer pensions are a thing of the past being replaced by 401ks and IRAs, which require the employee to fund. The problem is many employees don’t look too far into the future and neglect to fund individual retirement plans until later in their career. This is why Social Security is so important for the Millennials as a recent study showed that 60 percent of younger households will be unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement.
Another factor is that Social Security is not just a retirement program. The agency also provides disability and survivor’s benefits. Considering that another study showed that approximately 25 percent of today’s 20-year-olds will become disabled at some point of their careers, it’s an important program. Becoming disabled does not have to mean permanent disability, but any sort of disability resulting in the loss of significant employment can be costly. Social Security provides disability benefits to anyone who meets the medical and non-medical rules of its program as long as the disabled person has or will be out of work for at least a 12-month consecutive period. To learn more about why Social Security is so important for younger generations click here.
