I don't want to argue whether or not Social Security needs to be fixed. And (if you believe it does need fixing), I don't want to argue exactly when things fall apart. I'm assuming that things get stinky when we have to dip into the "trust fund" and the federal government needs to start borrowing (even) more money to continue providing promised Social Security benefits.
I do not want to "overhaul" the system. We just need to get promised benefits in line with expected revenues. I understand that the long-term projection is that revenues are 75% of promised benefits (long term), and so we're really pretty close.
I'll propose some simple changes, and you can take the poll to indicate which sound good to you.
Remove the income limit for FICA tax
Currently, FICA tax is only collected on the first $90,000 (or so) of earned income. I suggest we eliminate this limit, and reduce the rate from 7.3% (or whatever) with an even greater reduction for those who are self-employed (and pay double that rate). Doing this would not decrease benefits, but would only increase revenue.
Full retirement benefits at 70, early benefits at 65
I believe that there is already legislation which would increase the age for full benefits to 67 by 2015 (or something). Let's speed this up and make it 70 (the original age for full retirement benefits) by 2020 or so. Since most folks choose early retirement, we should increase that age as well. An exception should be made for those on disability... these folks should be able to retire at 62. Doing this would decrease benefits (they would be collected for fewer years) and would increase revenue since folks would work an extre three years and pay additional FICA tax.
Maximum retirement benefit grows at inflation minus 1%
There's a limit on the size of a check that Social Security will write. It's currently about $1900... that's double a minimum-wage paycheck. My understanding is that the limit increases not at the rate of inflation, but at the rate of wages (which is typically inflation plus a bit).
Look, if you're getting a maxed-out check from Social Security, then you made a good piece of coin during your working days. And you don't really need to have that check increasing at greater than inflation. So, let's slow down the growth of that limit. Doing this would decrease benefits but would not increase revenue.