OC 500: Jeff Motske

The Social Security Administration’s 2018 Trustee report contains the same dire news as last year – the benefit program will run out of money in 2034. Some look at this distant date as a reason to remain calm, confident a solution will be found. “Despite the projections on the insolvency of Social Security, I do not hold the belief that Social Security will dry up entirely,” says Ryan Repko, a financial adviser for Ruedi Wealth Management, Inc. in Champaign, Illinois. “For better or worse, social security has become hardcoded in the American DNA, after all, it is not called the ‘3^rd rail of politics’ for nothing. No politician wants to be in office and have social security dry up, so something will have to change that will reform social security, to keep it intact for generations to come. That’s my humble optimistic view.”

Others deny the way the math is interpreted. “Social Security is definitively not on the cusp of insolvency,” says Glenn Sulzer, Senior Analyst in the Corporate Compliance division of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. “The media hysteria that typically accompanies the SS Trustees’ Report ignores the fact that under current tax collections, the trust fund will be sufficient to pay 3/4 benefits for 75 years. The choreographed emergency is especially misplaced with those currently 50 and older, and even with respect to employees under the age of 50.

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It’s human nature to address challenges based on their most pervasive effects, rather than dissect their causes. Take the ongoing discussion about the need for diversity in wealth management as an example. Endless articles have been written about the need to have more women, more people of color and more age diversity in the industry. As one of the white males who too often exemplifies the status quo, I couldn’t agree more with the impulse: the future of financial advice must be more female, more ethnic and age diversified than it is today.

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