Thank you to everyone for your support of S4 over the years. Since our founding in 2005, we made substantial progress on the issue of Social Security reform. What started as a project of two impassioned college students -- our founders, Jonathan Swanson and Patrick Wetherille -- quickly grew into a grassroots movement that swept across the country. By 2009, we had over 11,000 members.

It would be impossible to list all of S4's successes since 2005, but we are grateful for all of the recognition and support that we received. Perhaps most important, S4 proved the conventional wisdom wrong. Young people do care about the future of this country, and by banding together, we can make a difference. And when all else fails, it helps to have an ostrich costume or two.

Here is a quick update of what S4 leaders are doing today:

• Jonathan Swanson, Jeremy Tunnell and Marco Zappacosta: Thumbtack.com, a marketplace for services
• Jeremy Tunnell now runs his own User Experience consulting business
• Patrick Wetherille: Harvard Business School; Gazelle.com, electronics recycling
• Nicola Moore: IHS

Thank you again to everyone who helped make S4 a success.

Personal accounts!

In the June 1 edition of Newsweek, Robert J. Samuelson wrote about the need to stop procrastinating and reform Social Security and Medicare.  Indeed, many people wonder why it is that we keep kicking the can down the road.

Conveniently, part of the answer came just one week later in the June 8 edition of Newsweek.  I can't find the graphic online, but if you'll turn to page 6 of the magazine, you can see that 57% of all letters to the editor received in the week prior to publication were regarding Samuelson's article.  An article about Iran generated the second-highest number of letters, at 19%.

Of the seven letters that 免费外网加速器手机printed, how many of them were about Samuelson's article?  Four of the seven, which equates almost exactly to 57%?  Three of the seven, which would underrepresent the Samuelson letters by almost 15%?  Two of the seven letters?  One?

The answer: zero.  That's right, not a single reader response to the Samuelson article appears in the Newsweek dated June 8.

Not only does this shed some light on the stumbling blocks to a serious conversation about reform, but it may also provide a clue as to why publications such as Newsweek are having trouble connecting with their readers. 

In case you missed it, the trustees of Medicare and Social Security released their annual report yesterday. The news was not good:

Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday.

Medicare already is paying out more money than it receives, something that happened for the first time last year. And Social Security will be by 2016, a year sooner than had been projected, the trustees' annual report said.

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From an article in the Washington Post that tries to dismiss personal accounts in light of the ups and downs of the stock market:

For many older baby boomers who once felt comfortable but have seen their 401(k)s and other accounts eviscerated the past two years, the magic words are no longer "stock market" -- they're "Social Security." That program, which is going to need to cut growth in benefits or get a huge bailout in a few years, is assuming a more important role in retirement planning than it has in decades.

The only problem with arguing that Social Security is becoming more important?  It's not true.  Yesterday, U.S. News & World Report highlighted this finding from a recent Gallup poll:

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It's okay to disagree with personal accounts, but let's have a fair fight.  As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

Chuck Blahous, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, talked on PBS about the coming Social Security deficit:

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BLAHOUS: It's clear that is going to come nearer. We don't know how much, maybe 2016, 2015, it's hard to say.

Here's the transcript.