Younger Americans Overwhelmingly Support Individual Retirement Accounts
Four out of five in Generation-X want to be able to invest their Social Security
taxes
September 15, 1999
A new nationwide poll conducted for the Cato Institute by Zogby International
shows that a huge majority-78.3 percent-of Americans aged 18-29 want to be able
to invest their Social Security taxes in privately owned retirement accounts.
Only 12.6 percent were opposed. Majority support for individual accounts extended
across all age groups except those over 65. Those aged 30-49 favored individual
accounts by 71.0 to 17.7 percent; and even those nearest retirement, aged 50-64,
preferred the private investment alternative, with a majority of 51.4 percent
in favor and 35.3 percent against. The survey of 1,205 voters nationwide was
conducted from July 29 to August 2, 1999, and the poll has a margin of error
of plus or minus 3 percent.
Overall, the Zogby poll found that, by a margin of 54.9 to 31.4 percent, Americans
prefer changing the Social Security system to allow people to choose to put
their payroll taxes in individual accounts similar to IRAs or 401(k) plans.
Large pluralities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents favor allowing
people to invest Social Security taxes in individual accounts. All three groups
are more likely to vote for a candidate for Congress or president who supports
privatization in the 2000 elections.
The survey also found that all age groups, other than those 65 and older,
consider the current Social Security system more risky than private investments
because they believe the government will not be able to pay all the benefits
it has promised.
Among racial groups, minorities turned out to favor private investment even
more than whites: 57.8 percent of blacks want to be able to invest at least
part of their money; Hispanics, 60.6 percent; and non-Hispanic whites, 54.0
percent.
A significant variation turned up among women: 60.1 percent of women who work
outside the home prefer at least some investment opportunity, compared with
36.2 percent of women who stay at home. And although union leaders have waged
a heavy campaign against privatization, 53.8 percent of union workers supported
transforming Social Security into a system of individual accounts. Only 30.8
percent of union workers opposed privatization. These numbers were nearly identical
with those for the population at large. Born-again Christians supported privatization
by 52.1 to 34.0 percent.
The Zogby-Cato Social Security Privatization
Poll Results
2001 Index | 2000
Index | 1999 Index | 1998
Index
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