Multimillionaire entrepreneur Tom Bilyeu has what you might call an interesting theory on Social Security. He apparently believes the U.S. should “slowly remove” the retirement benefits program so Americans will have more kids — and those kids can then take on the financial responsibility of caring for their elderly parents.
Bilyeu, co-founder of Quest Nutrition and CEO of Impact Theory, expressed that viewpoint in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter). In the post, Bilyeu wrote that “if you want to increase the birth rate in a developed, educated nation, make sure housing is affordable, ensure there’s a stable store of wealth, and (here’s the part you’ll hate), slowly remove Social Security.”
Why does he think that’s a good idea — even though he concedes we might “hate it too much” to actually do it?
The reason, according to Bilyeu, is that removing Social Security “would push the responsibility for old age down to the family level and thus incentivize people to have kids. In an agricultural economy, people have kids partly because they’re cheap labor for the farm. In a world without social security they become cheap labor to help you in old age.”
Bilyeu closed the tweet with the following:
“The affordable housing and store of wealth make people think long term and feel secure enough to deal with the huge period of time where kids are the world’s most fulfilling and emotionally important drain on capital. Trust me, the non monetary reasons people have kids is not lost on me, but neither is the plummeting birth rate.”
With an estimated net worth of about $400 million, Bilyeu knows a thing or two about building wealth. But his idea about slowly removing Social Security and putting elderly care back in the hands of younger family members is a long shot at best.
In 2024, an average of nearly 68 million Americans a month will receive a Social Security benefit, according to the Social Security Administration. Those checks total about $1.5 trillion in benefits paid during the year.
Social Security is such an important part of retirement for Americans that doing anything to cut or reform it is considered the “third rail” of politics. Most lawmakers want to leave the program alone, outside of occasional proposals to raise the full retirement age or increase the amount of income subject to Social Security payroll taxes.
Social Security is considered so sacrosanct that even President Joe Biden and ex-President Donald Trump — 2024 election rivals who agree on almost nothing — both say that benefits should not be touched. Given the current political climate, it may be a long time before any presidential candidate gets on board with dissolving Social Security altogether.
