Asking for a positive return on social security is like asking for a positive return on welfare. The positive return comes from not having so many homeless old people all over the country. It's not a personal investment vehicle.

It could be that OP expects Social Security to be kaput by the time he gets to be old.

Looking at the population graph, that’s a valid concern. There’s a ton of boomers and a ton of millenials, but very few babies to pay for our retirement.

(This phenomenon could invalidate even individual stock investment retirement plans as well. We need a future generation of workers, investors, entrepreneurs, consumers).

> This phenomenon could invalidate even individual stock investment retirement plans as well.

It has always baffled me how nobody ever takes this into account for investments.