I've long been in favor of a staged termination.
Start off with retirement benefits only. Deal with the disability side of the SS coin at a later time. In other words, eat the elephant one bite at a time.
- If you're under 18 -- It's gone, you'll never have it withheld from your paycheck and your employer's portion will be reduced by 50%
- Some age range (say 18-30) -- You can opt out, no longer have it deducted from your paycheck, never receive any in retirement, and your employers contribution is reduced by 25%. OR you can go to 50% and your employers contribution decreases by 35%.
- Another range (say 31-55) -- You can stay in as is, or you can opt out at 50% benefits. If you stay in then employers contribution remains the same, and if you opt to 50% benefits your withholdings go to 50% and your employers portion is reduced 15%.
- Final bracket (Say 56-retirement) -- Just stay in at this point.
This would likely require govt subsidization, especially for a decade or so as new non-paying workers enter the workforce and full fare workers become fewer, and those in retirement peak over 10 year period or so.
This needs to be accompanied by an increase in 401k contribution limits as people are taking home more of their pay. It would also offer up capital for higher wages on the low end of the scale.
A side effect is that it would make employment of near retirement age persons more costly, but presumably those bring the experience to the table. Or companies would need some other incentive to retain or hire fresh at that age bracket.
No plan would be perfect, but it most certainly NEEDS to go away.
Also, go back to NOT taxing SS as ordinary income. Reduce payments by half of whatever the tax would be on it then send it to the people.