Originally Posted by TSGracchus

It was economically stupid both short-term and long-term. Short-term, when workers (=consumers) were already not making enough money to keep the economy going well, it was a really bad idea to further reduce their spending money with a regressive tax. The recession-within-the-Depression of 1937-39 was the result. Long-term, the program has a very low payout in terms of pay-in, and depends for its stability on most workers never living to collect benefits, and on an ever-increasing pool of young workers contributing to the program to support retired people drawing from it.