I was at the movies the other night watching Life Aquatic, and in the pre-show entertainment an economics question came up from Econ4U.com:

20. How much money is currently held in the Social Security Trust Fund?

• $0
• $100 million
• $500 billion
• $900 billion

Now, I've seen questions from these people in the past -- they're usually personal finance questions, small business questions, and things like that. However, I guessed $900 billion, since after all Social Security Trust Fund is perfectly solvent until 2042 to 2053. (Those long-range forecasts are hard to pin down obviously). Imagine my surprise when Econ4U tells me that the correct answer is $0! They explain:

Zero. The taxes you pay for Social Security today are used to finance current retirees and other government programs (emphasis added). When you retire, taxes on current employees will be used to pay your benefits. This transfer system has worked well for the first 60 years of the program, but current demographic trends create concerns that employee contributions will not be able to sustain payments to the aging "Baby Boomer" generation in the near future.

If you would like to take a look at the quiz, check out question 20.

The company behind these questions appears to be the Employment Policies Institute, a right-wing economics think-tank. The seem primarily concerned with the minimum wage, but perhaps they just haven't gotten the memos yet on the importance of destroying Social Security. Stay tuned for more propaganda at a movie theater near you.