Don’t rely on government: Retirement Is Still Your Job
Posted By RichC on December 21, 2025
Every so often I run across another article reminding us that Social Security may not look the same in the future as it does today (one was in TheStreet.com highlighting Dave Ramsey). That should surprise exactly no one. Yet many Americans still talk about Social Security as though it were a full retirement plan rather than what it actually is — a partial income stream 
designed decades ago for a very different demographic reality.
Dave Ramsey has been saying this for years, often in much plainer language. His point is not that Social Security will vanish, but that it was never intended to carry the full weight of retirement. At best, it replaces a portion of pre-retirement income. At worst, future benefit reductions make planning around it even harder. Either way, depending on it as a primary strategy is a gamble.
Where Ramsey tends to be more emphatic — and where I largely agree with him — is on the importance of taking personal ownership of retirement planning. IRAs and 401(k)s are not perfect vehicles, but they offer something Social Security never can: control. Employer matches, tax advantages and long-term compounding all work in favor of the disciplined saver. Over decades, that matters far more than hoping Congress gets the math right to salvage Social Security.
That said, Social Security will likely still be there in some form … but think of it as a supplement. The uncomfortable truth is that no government program will care about your retirement as much as you do. That responsibility hasn’t gone away, no matter how many promises were made along the way.
If retirement is important to you — and it should be — then planning for it remains a do-it-yourself project. Take it seriously.
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