Retirement and Economics

To tie in my project to economics, I have chosen some words that connect the two.

Opportunity Cost-Value of the option given up in favor of another “What you give up”.
Citizens that pay for social security and Medicare deal with opportunity cost because they give up some money in hopes of receiving their fair share of monetary help after retirement. The opportunity cost of social security and Medicare is having less money to themselves.
It can also work both ways for the government. The government’s opportunity cost of social security and Medicare is having less money to spend on other areas.

Cost-Benefit Analysis-Analysis of the potential benefits of an action vs. the potential costs.
People paying for social security and healthcare might do cost-benefit analysis on the matters. They may go over it and see that the benefits of investing in social security and healthcare is an easier retired life, money wise, while the cost would be the money they pay with each paycheck now.

Inflation-A general rise in the price level or a general decline in the purchasing power of the dollar.
Inflation is not helping the social security situation at all. The rising prices are making it hard for senior citizens that are getting less money than they were when they were working, to go about paying for expenses. Because of this, they need more and more money from the government to keep up. This poses a problem because the government can only give so much unless they ask for more and more out of the working people.

National Debt-Total accumulated yearly deficits of the U.S. government.
Since the U.S. is already heavily in debt, it’s even harder to solve the social security and Medicare issues. We don’t have the excess money to help out the senior citizens more so a better plan needs to be devised so that we can control this problem but not put us even more in debt.

Collective Goods and Services-Things that benefit large groups of people provided by the government.
The government provides services that will benefit the people which include social security and Medicare.

Socialism-An economic system in which most businesses are owned and operated by the government.
Social security is a form of economic socialism because the government controls it and helps not only the elderly but also the needy and disabled. Socialism is all about putting people on and even field and helping everyone and social security was established for everyone’s benefit.