Our Ability to Manage Social Security as a "Pay-As-You-Go" Program

Our ability to manage Social Security as a "pay-as-you-go" program (in which taxes collected from those currently working are used to make benefits payments to those currently retired) is impaired when the number of retirees per worker increases. The current concern about the stability of Social Security is based primarily on projections that there will many more retirees per worker when the baby boomers begin to retire. Then, if we want to maintain a pay-as-you-go system, we can:

A) reduce benefits to compensate for the increase in the number of retirees per worker.
B) raise benefits to compensate for the increase in the number of retirees per worker.
C) maintain current benefit levels with no changes to how Social Security is financed.
D) reduce benefits to compensate for the decrease in the number of retirees per worker.