Well the money is generally earmarked. Your Section 8 voucher goes towards housing, food stamps go towards food, etc. That creates a limit on how the money can be spent.

Social Security isn't earmarked. Food stamps have pretty trivial workarounds for converting them into cash.

the problem would be exacerbated. Food stamps do have workarounds, but the fact that it's not cash makes the problem much less severe

That's fair. I guess part of the question is whether it's unacceptable to have any way people can fall through the cracks, or whether it's about relative improvement. The original comment felt more like the former, but that's just what I got from it.

Programmes like this: https://www.gov.uk/budgeting-help-benefits/how-it-works

It becomes a mental health problem rather than a poverty problem.

Social Security is not a give away. People have paid into SSI for years and they are getting their money out of it. No one is giving them free money and they free to blow it as they see fit.

Social Security started out paying benefits to people who never paid in. The money you pay to Social Security is for your parents and the money they paid was for their parents.

You are splitting hairs. I pay into SSI and there is an expectation that I will get a certain amount out of it based on when I retire and when I die. It is known today what I will get out in the future. Also, since the Social Security fund holds a ton of T-Bills (Think savings account), the argument that people who are retired now are getting someone else's money is technically wrong. If the Social Security fund held no T-Bills and young people were paying into a fund that was then immediately paid out to retirees, then I would agree with you.

> I pay into SSI and there is an expectation that I will get a certain amount out of it based on when I retire and when I die. It is known today what I will get out in the future.

It isn't. Congress can change it whenever they want, and they have more than once already.

> Also, since the Social Security fund holds a ton of T-Bills (Think savings account), the argument that people who are retired now are getting someone else's money is technically wrong. If the Social Security fund held no T-Bills and young people were paying into a fund that was then immediately paid out to retirees, then I would agree with you.

The Social Security fund doesn't hold enough T-Bills to satisfy its "obligations" and the shortfall (and then some) is made up for by current payers. The only reason it has any T-Bills at all is that the population has been expanding so more people have been paying into it than collecting benefits, and the government promptly loans the extra money to itself and spends it on F-35s and gifting tanks to ISIS.

Moreover, T-Bills in the hands of the government issuing them are not money. The government can't redeem them to itself to get money because that action would only cancel out. The only way the Social Security fund can actually convert a T-Bill into money that came from somewhere other than current-year taxpayers is to sell it on the bond market. But that has all the economic consequences of the government issuing new debt.

In other words, the only place the money paid out to Social Security recipients can come from is either current-year taxpayers or by selling into the bond market. Which is exactly the same as any program that isn't holding any T-Bills. The trust fund is an economic no-op.