The "legacy debt" in the United States Social Security System is the difference between what the first generation of beneficiaries paid into the system to the benefits that they received. The very first beneficiary was Ida May Fuller who paid only $24.75 towards Social Security and upon her death at age 100 she had collected almost $23,000 in benefits.
Paying off this legacy debt is a goal for Social Security reform so as not to burden future generations.
It is also a contributing reason as to why the Social Security Trust Fund has such a low annual rate of return.
Famous quotes containing the words legacy and/or debt:
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“I have been told, that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations. But now I almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words. For persons are love’s world, and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the power of love, without being tempted to unsay, as treasonable to nature, aught derogatory to the social instincts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)