The Future of Social Security and Medicare, When Is Graduate School a Good Idea? and How to Raise Resilient Kids

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Welcome to Office Hours with Prov G. This is

the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship,

and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question,

please email a voice recording to officehours at profgmedia.com. Again,

that's officehours at profgmedia.com. So with that, first question.
Hello, Prof G. This is Ross from Windermere, Florida, a loyal fan of your various podcasts.
In fact, I told my younger brother about it, and he will not miss a single episode. anyway I am 67 about to turn 68

and therefore In fact, I told my younger brother about it, and he will not miss a single episode.

Anyway, I am 67, about to turn 68, and therefore keenly interested in the continued availability of Social Security and Medicare. During the campaign, Donald Trump said he wouldn't fuck with either of those, but will he? What's your best guess on whether Social Security and Medicare are up for some kind of a modification? And do you think that Congress has the will to go along with it? Anyway, thanks again for all that you do.
I don't think you have anything to worry about, boss. Social Security is kind of theoretically, or not theoretically, is largely considered a very successful social program.
Before it's invention about one in five seniors lived in poverty. Now it's, I think, one in 12.
It has been very successful. People depend upon it.
It provides people with a lot of comfort. And in addition, it's kind of up America's new alley of transferring wealth from the young to the poor.
So you can kind of see where I'm going with this. I'll come back to that.
But Social Security is the government's biggest budget item, and Medicare is the second largest. As a matter of fact, about 40% of our federal budget goes to programs for people over the age of 65.
It used to be 10%, then it went to 25 to 40. Within probably 10 years, over half of the majority of our federal budget is going to go to programs for people over the age of 65.

In 2024, Social Security accounted for over $1.4 trillion of federal spending, and the program covered over 71 million workers.

Last year, the U.S. spent over $800 billion on Medicare.
Over 25% of American adults are enrolled in the program.

Now, are the future of these benefits uncertain?

Recent reports project that the Social Security and Medicare funds would be depleted by 2033 and 2036, respectively. Before his first term, Trump promised he would preserve both Medicare and Social Security.
However, things changed. Each of his yearly budget proposals included cuts to both Social Security and Medicare, although they were never enacted.
Still, Trump has maintained that he will not make cuts to the program, nor will he change the retirement age. I don't see any path other than either deficits, which are taxes on the young, or some sort of means testing for Social Security.
And by the way, I do believe there is no reason that I should have Social Security. And people say, well, you paid into it.
Well, they call it Social Security tax. There's a lot of taxes I pay where I don't register the benefits.
It's not called Social Security pension fund. Now, to be clear, it's not adding to the deficit, if you will, because in fact, it's an offline budget item.
But at the same time, it still is the biggest item in our budget. It used to be 12 workers for every one retired person.
Now, because people are living longer, it's now three to one. And it is a real tax on the young.
At a minimum, we should lift the cap. I believe it's either six or eight percent, but basically, the cap is at 160 grand.
So I have analysts working here at Prof. G who make grand.
So they make or they pay $9,000 in social security tax. I make $16 million and I pay $9,000.
Why on earth are the rich not paying their share to support our seniors? So if you're going to continue to transfer this much money to seniors and you think it's a good idea, fine. But why on earth would it be a regressive tax on the young? Why? Because my generation has decided that the new gestalt is, quite frankly, let me think, to fuck young people.

I also think we should means test it.

I think if you have over a million dollars in assets or $100,000 in passive income,

you don't need Social Security or you shouldn't get it and all this bullshit.

I paid into it. Actually, the majority of people who collect Social Security for a number of years take out two to three times what they put into it.
So this notion that I'm entitled to it. No, you're not.
It's a tax. People who need it are entitled to it.
So I think you got to means test it. Also, when we invented or implemented Social Security, the majority of people weren't living to 65.
Guess what? Now the majority, the vast majority of people

are living past 65 and or working past the age of 65.

So we need to means test it and we need to lift the age.

What should Social Security be?

It should be a safety net for seniors

who are no longer working of a certain age

where it doesn't make sense for them to work

who need the money.

That would be fiscal sanity. Thanks so much for the question.
Question number two. Hey, Scott, this is Chase calling from Hawaii.
I started listening to you after your podcast with Theo Vaughn. Really appreciate what you do.
I'm 24 years old. I work for the division of Forestry and Wildlife.
I love it, but the pay is horrendous. I make about

$40,000 a year. For a while, I was complacent, told myself I don't need to make money.
I like what I do, but I realized that I absolutely do need to make money. I want to start a family.
I want to buy a house, buy nice things. I find myself extremely motivated to put my all into something, go all in.

But at the same time, I'm completely overwhelmed by the number of ways there are to make money nowadays.

I feel stuck.

I have my degree in psychology.

I'm not going to use it.

If I could go back, I definitely would have gotten my degree in something else.

What would you do if you were in my shoes?

And how do you navigate finding a balance between making money and doing something meaningful? Next. Chase, first off, I really appreciate the question.
And the first thing I want you to do, because I hear some sadness or disappointed or anger at yourself in your voice, is I want you to forgive yourself. You're 24, boss.
You're doing something important. You're working for the Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
That's like, you know, a million species and trees would like to say thank you, but they can't. And when my kids are roaming around the redwoods and get to see a bear in Aspen, that sounded douchey, a bear in Aspen, you get my point.
You're doing something meaningful and you're getting good experience. And you're workshopping.
That's what you're supposed to do in your 20s. And you're still so ridiculously young.
You could have been doing nothing and you'd still be fine because you can start your life at 40, much less you're an infant professionally at 24. So this is what you're going to do.
You're going to forgive yourself and realize you did something. You've got a couple of years under your belt.
You've done something important now. I don't know enough about you, but I have a gut for what you may want to explore.
The first thing is a no-brainer. I need you to put together a kitchen cabinet of some people you trust that are smart, that know you, that you can call and get advice from and say, I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about this, or find people who maybe left the service and are doing other things.
Start to talk to people and find a group of people that you can call and get advice. It is very hard to read the label from inside of the bottle.
Two, and this is where my gut kicks in, you sound to me like someone who is a perfect candidate for graduate school. And I would need to ask some more questions.
Do you like school? Because here's the thing about graduate school. It's for two people.

It's for people who are very focused and need a PhD in microbiology so they can go do work on coming up with the cure for cancer, right?

But the vast majority of people who at least go back to get an MBA are what I call the elite and the aimless.

I was one of those people.

I had decent certification.

I was smart.

I was hardworking.

But I had no idea what I wanted to do. I'd spent two years at Morgan Stanley and fixed income.
And all I knew was I didn't want to do fixed income at Morgan Stanley anymore, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. And the majority, I would say two thirds of the people that go to business school don't know what they want to do.
Their first essay, they lie. They pretend they're really focused.
They don't know what they want to do. That's why they're going back to graduate school.
That's where you are. You're elite, right? You obviously went to a school, you got a psychology degree, you got a good job servicing our nation in public service.
You're elite. You're a little bit aimless right now, which spells to me graduate school.
So this is what I want you to do. I want you to start talking to a bunch of people, including people who've left the service, find out what they're doing.
I want you to put together a kitchen cabinet of people to bounce ideas off of. And I want you to think about graduate school and see if it's a fit for you.

Anyways, I really appreciate your service.

And Chase from Hawaii, you're exactly where you should be.

You're ahead of the game.

You had a good job serving the public, serving the public good.

You're 24.

You live in Hawaii.

It is good to be Chase.

We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.
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Welcome back. Question number three.
Hi, Prof G. My name is Michael.
I live in Altadena, California. I'm originally from Baltimore, Maryland.
It was a tough city. When I reflect on my childhood, I think about times where I caught the public bus to school.
I would be on there with crackheads, dope dealers, people just going to work trying to survive. I had conversations with these folks.
I learned a lot and it instilled a level of grit inside of me. My question for you is, as I become a new father, how do I instill that level of grit inside of my children so when life gets hard and throws them curveballs, they have the self-awareness and the durability to overcome any obstacles? My wife and I will remain in Southern California for the foreseeable future.
Thank you. Thanks, Michael.
And I hope and trust you were not affected by the fires in Altadena. Just be clear, the first couple of years, let me break it down as a dad.
And not everyone has the same experience. I'll give you my experience.
I pretended to like it. I thought it sucked.
I was stressed out. I was stressed about money.
I was just trying to keep this little science experiment away from a body of water and just keep it alive. And then slowly but surely, one of my favorite shows growing up was a show called Frasier.
And Frasier said about his son, you know, you fall in love with your kids. And that is, I didn't, a switch didn't turn on when my sons were born.
And I'm like, oh, I'm madly in love with this thing. I was more scared and nauseous than anyone.
By the way, childbirth is so disgusting. Try not to be in the room.
I'm going to get you for that. Anyways, you do fall in love.
I found that over time, it just got better and better. It went from awful to less awful to tolerable to good to now I just, quite frankly, I just have purpose in my life.
I've figured out finally in my life what my purpose is, and that is to raise loving, patriotic men. And in terms of establishing grit for kids, I mean, there's a couple of things.
One, we have a tendency to overprotect offline and underprotect online, and it should be reversed. Fortunately, all this bullshit around smartphones is probably going to be solved or at least addressed by the time your kids are old enough.
But some of the mistakes I've made, I didn't instill enough about doing chores with my kids such that they developed routine and saw connected reward with effort. They're actually pretty good with money for some reason.
I don't know where they got that, but they understand the value of money. Sports and athletics.
I started working out with my kids at a very young age and pushing them in such that they could understand their limits. The gift I got from rowing crew was that when you feel like you can't take anymore physically, that means you're about a third of the way to your actual limit.
And crew teaches you that. It teaches you to break limits that you just are, you know, exceed limits you never thought were possible.
And you can carry that to the rest of your life. So how do you do that with kids, sports, working out? Also letting them fail.
There's something called bulldozer or concierge parenting that is supposedly making a generation of fragile kids. What does that mean? I had someone call me and say, well, you're an academic.
Our daughter who's straight A's is getting a B, and the teacher clearly does not like her. So we're thinking about calling the principal.

Can you give us, and it's being unfair to her, can you give us some words?

I'm like, that is absolutely the worst thing you could do for your daughter.

Your daughter is going to face injustice and unfair assholes the rest of her life.

And she needs to learn how to deal with it and maybe cope with disappointment.

And so we have developed this so much bulldozer and concierge parenting where we clear out all the obstacles for our kids that they develop this princess in the peace syndrome where they show up to college, get their heart broken, get their first D, and they freak out. You don't want to use so many sanitary wipes on your kids' lives that they don't develop their own immunity.
So what I do, and this is hard. I'll give you an example.
My youngest is going to meet his friends at the Westfield Mall, which is a very nice mall in London. I ordered him an Uber, which I probably shouldn't do.
He has a goddamn Uber app. Why am I doing it? I typed in the wrong Westfield and he ended up on the wrong side of town of London, freaking out, calling me, calling his mom, his mom calling me.
And I decided I put my foot down. I'm like, you got a smartphone.
You got an Uber account. Figure it out, figure it out, right? He's panicked.
And he did figure it out. He actually found that the subway was the fastest way to get to the right mall.
He went in, he has his Oyster card, and he got there. That builds confidence.
That builds resilience. Summer jobs.
My oldest, who is 17, is now thinking about what makes his resume look good for college. And he's doing these things that are kind of, I don't know, he's thinking about biology or something in the sciences.
So he's going to intern at the medical clinic. And I said, this is what you do.
We vacation on an island or we spend summers on an island. I'm like, I want you to get a job washing dishes or being a busboy.
Services jobs build grit. It's where I got a lot of mine.
And not only that, it builds empathy. So what do we have? We have chores, we have jobs, we have sports, and we have a lack of concierge or bulldozer parenting.
And occasionally we let the kids fail and then tell them, I don't know, that's a tough one. You need to figure it out.

This, I hope for you that having children does what it did for me and that is giving

me a sense of purpose and a sense of peace.

Thanks so much for the question.

That's all for this episode.

If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at

profgmedia.com.

Again, that's officehours at profgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours at propgmedia.com.
This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our intern is Dan Chalon.
Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to Prop G5 and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn.

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