Poll: 4 of 5 don't grasp retirement needs

WASHINGTON -- Four out of five people don't understand that they haven't paid enough money into Social Security and Medicare to cover their own retirement and hospital care, according a new Stony Brook poll released Monday.

That's in part because two-thirds of the people surveyed admitted they were simply guessing about how much they've actually paid into the two federal programs through payroll taxes, the poll found.

"U.S. taxpayers do not know what they are contributing to Social Security and Medicare, but they are convinced that they're paying enough into these two systems, despite all the publicity regarding the pending insolvency of both programs," said Duffy Mich, of Left Right Research, the Ronkonkoma marketing firm that underwrote and conducted the web-based poll in connection with the Stony Brook University College of Business.

The poll found many of those surveyed were far off the mark on the amount they had paid, but expressed strong confidence in their guesses.

Such a misinformed public skews discussions about the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, said Mike Kamins, a marketing professor and research director for the college.

The poll recruited 6,988 people nationally to fill out questionnaires on the Internet, unlike most polls, which rely on random telephone calls.

Social Security and Medicare pay out more than they take in from payroll taxes. Social Security's trust fund is projected to run out of money in 2036 and the Medicare hospital trust fund by 2024.

Wage earners are taxed 1.45 percent for Medicare and 4.2 percent for Social Security, a rate lowered this year from 6.2 percent as a stimulus measure.