In my youth, my father worked hard every day and looked forward to receiving his Social Security benefits when his time was due. When he finally began collecting, combined with a modest pension from General Motors where he worked for over 40 years, he was able to comfortably support himself and his family. By the time I reached mid-life crisis, my father passed on at the age of 80, just a few short years before GM went bust and his pension and additional health care would have gone up in smoke. Needless to say, my father was one of the lucky ones because both his social security and pension checks cleared up to the end.

Now that I’m old enough to apply for retirement benefits, my expectations of actually collecting until the end are fading fast. The bargain with the government of working hard and paying in so you will be paid in the future doesn’t correlate with the current economic data I’ve seen. The chart below shows how much money is actually coming in versus how much money is going out, a wake-up call for anyone my age. It also shows that the needy and disabled along with those who have given up on work get paid first, so social security has effectively been gutted already.

The system is failing because Social Security Disability and the other programs for those young enough to work who have chosen not to, provides money to tens of millions of people looking for a government handout. Like all government programs for the needy, social security disability started out as a small government program originally designed to help workers who were seriously injured on the job or had some other legitimate reason to collect a government check and then a Medicare card two years later. Today the program has absolutely exploded and 10.6 million workers are hiding out on it. This means, approximately one out of five social security checks are going to a disabled worker. So, if you’re expecting to collect social security anytime soon, you’ll need to take a look at the numbers below prior to meeting with your estate planner: