Social Security

I've read a bunch of op-eds from Democrats claiming that the Bush Administration is engaged in a war on social security, and that far from being broken the system compares favorably with much of the rest of the world.

A new OECD report, however, would seem to belie such claims:

U.S. Social Security is one of the least generous public pension systems in advanced countries, providing an employee on average earnings a pension after tax of 51 per cent of pre-retirement income, a comparative study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows.

The average employee in an advanced country can expect a government pension of 70 per cent of his or her after-tax earnings at retirement compared with 39 per
cent for an equivalent U.S. citizen.

Update: E. J. Dionne Jr. calls social security "the most successful government program in our history" in today's Washington Post.