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You're never too young to care

By ROBERT TRIGAUX
Published August 24, 2005

TAMPA - I'm not sure what was more remarkable. That more than 125 young adults, whose employers ranged from phosphate companies in Riverview to financial firms in Tarpon Springs, showed up on a work night to listen to politicians talk about Social Security reform.

Or that an area group composed of these adults from 21 to 35 even dared to come up with the idea of hosting a forum on the future of fixing the way America funds its 70-year-old retirement system.

Either way, Emerge Tampa should be commended. The group, affiliated with the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce and dedicated to hooking young and largely college-educated adults into the area's business and political mainstream, sponsored a Tuesday evening of debate on a long-term, complex problem.

How do we fix the Social Security system? And if we don't, what's left for the generation in their 20 and early 30s when it's their turn to retire?

One brief recommendation that surely deserved more reinforcement, especially given Tuesday's youthful audience, was to start personally saving more for retirement early in life.

Two U.S. congressmen, Democrat (and candidate for governor) Jim Davis and Republican Adam Putnam, shared the spotlight at the Ybor campus of Hillsborough Community College to sell their views on a Social Security repair.

While they agreed the Social Security system cannot continue without help, the two clearly differed on the cure.

Putnam - just 31, he is a member of Emerge Tampa - suggested raising the retirement age and giving people the option to privately invest a portion of their Social Security funds were likely strategies. The red-haired representative added that Social Security is struggling but is expected to be officially "broke" by 2041, just when he is likely to retire.

Davis - at 47, still taking exception to recent AARP solicitations he calls premature - cautioned his mostly office-working audience that many retirees who were disabled, widowed or had made their living by hard physical labor were especially vulnerable to any Social Security cuts in benefits or raising the age when Social Security kicks in.

For Emerge Tampa, the evening was right on target and proved once again the group could assemble a good portion of its 570 members to hear some serious and, yes, at times tedious exchanges on a big issue. Even on a muggy night in August. The group held a well-attended forum in February on affordable housing in Tampa.

While Emerge Tampa has plenty of purely social events, additional forums on tough-to-solve issues seem assured.

Putnam put it best at the end of Tuesday's two-hour gathering.

"I'm glad to see you are defying the belief that young people only care if the president wears boxers or briefs," he told the room. "This is good civics."

Reforming Social Security was a hot topic during last year's presidential election, and grew more intense when President Bush started his second term by making it a priority of his domestic agenda.

But the president lately has eased off on his Social Security sales pitch as more pressing topics have consumed his attention.

Support for the plan to create personal Social Security retirement accounts that might include stocks or mutual funds has slowly dropped among most Americans. But not among young adults. Nearly two-thirds of young adults between 18 and 29 continue to support the idea of private accounts as part of the Social Security equation, according to an early 2005 national survey by the Pew Research Center.

"Any time I can have more flexibility and control of my money, I think that is a good thing - as long as it is optional," says Mike Griffin, 24, a co-founder of Emerge Tampa who works for a Tampa real estate firm called Vertical Integration.

A private account also appeals to 31-year-old Martin Saavedra Jr., a vice president with the MartinLitho family business in Tampa.

"I would enjoy having a portion of my Social Security in a private account under my control," says Saavedra. "But there should be limitations. Someone should not have carte blanche to go day trading with their retirement accounts."

Saavedra was eager to hear an exchange that did not seem to take the "AARP point of view" but addressed the "21 to 35 standpoint." Tuesday's forum hit the mark, he says.

At 25, Katie Vickers is not only a veteran of Emerge Tampa and an organizer of Tuesday's Ybor event. She has her feet wet in politics by helping out on Tampa lawyer Bill McBride's unsuccessful run for Florida governor in 2002.

She thinks many of the young adults in Emerge Tampa are not sold on the Bush plan but realize the Social Security system won't be around for them without change.

"I like the idea of the government handling Social Security and putting it away for our retirement. But I do not know what form that should take to make it work," says Vickers, a senior marketing agent for Tampa's Principal Financial Group. "I hope the people I elect can fix things so those funds will be there when we need it."

Keep in mind Vickers will be retiring at age 65, if she so chooses, in 2045.

Now that's thinking ahead.

Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.

[Last modified August 24, 2005, 01:14:20]