SSI> Order Your Social Security Statement

When you retire, do you know what Social Security Benefits you will receive? After all, you've put in a lifetime of hard work and tax contributions. Today, over 130 million people contribute to Social Security. And nearly 40 million people receive an incredible $20 billion in benefits each and every month.

You owe it to yourself to double check your Social Security benefits on a regular basis. And now you can quickly and easily get an Official Social Security Report without going through red tape or standing in lines.

Your Social Security Report Shows You . . .

Your yearly contributions to date
How much you can collect during each month of retirement
How much you would collect if you became disabled
How much your spouse and children would receive in survivor's benefits
To Get Your Report . . . Simply click here to link to the Social Security Administration's online order form. Fill out the form following the instructions and submit it. A copy of your report should be mailed to you within 4 weeks.

If you're 62 or older, you can apply online for Social Security retirement or spouse's benefits. It's quick and easy, and the information you give us will be secure. Do you want to:

• Apply for Retirement and/or Spouse's Benefits

• Restart Your Incomplete Application

• Check Your Internet Application

"Saving" Social Security Is Not Enough
by Michael Tanner

It seems that no politician discusses Social Security these days without a call to "save" the program. Certainly, it is possible to see why the program needs saving. It is facing financial insolvency: it is more than $20 trillion in debt and will be running a deficit in just 15 years. But to focus on "saving" Social Security is to miss the larger point. Merely finding sufficient funding to preserve Social Security fails to address the serious shortcomings of the current system. The question should be, not whether we can save Social Security, but whether we can provide the best possible retirement system for American workers. Social Security fails both as an anti-poverty program and as a retirement program. It contains numerous inequities and leaves future retirement benefits to the whims of politicians. Why should the goal of public policy be to save such a program?

Instead of saving Social Security, we should begin the transition to a new and better retirement system based on individually owned, privately invested accounts. The new system would allow workers to accumulate real wealth that would prevent their retiring to poverty. Because a privatized system would provide a far higher rate of return, it would yield much higher retirement benefits. Because workers would own their accounts, money in them could be passed on to future generations as an inheritance. That would particularly benefit the poor and minorities. Finally, workers would no longer be dependent on politicians for their retirement incomes. Michael Tanner is director of the Cato Institute Project on Social Security Privatization and coauthor of A New Deal for Social Security (1998).

Need a copy of your birth certificate?
For information or to request a certified copy of a birth certificate from another state, you may call the following vital statistics offices: