The US government taxes younger workers trying to start families, and gives their money to wealthier retirees.

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The welfare state is supposed to redistribute funds from times of plenty to times of need, as well as from rich to poor. That is why the nation’s most generous publicly financed benefits are reserved for seniors, who have less capacity to earn money and who face higher health-care costs, while taxes are concentrated on working-age households.

But working-age Americans, despite typically earning more income than seniors, also bear substantial child-rearing costs, have rarely paid off their mortgages, and must spend more to live near good jobs and schools. As a result, this group now has lower material standards of living than retirees: they have less living space, are more likely to go without meals or health care, are less able to pay utility bills, are more likely to live in pest-infested houses, and are more likely to live where they feel threatened by crime. This also means that families have less money to invest in their children.

The U.S.’s increasingly costly entitlements for middle-class retirees result in substantial redistribution away from young workers. If this system is not reformed soon, major tax increases on workers at all income levels will be required, which will only exacerbate redistribution away from age groups who are worst off.

Why Redistribute to the Elderly?
Economist Nicholas Barr has argued that the welfare state serves two main functions: First, as a “Robin Hood”, redistributing from the rich to the poor; second as a “piggy bank,” redistributing income from times of plenty to times of need over the life cycle.[1] The second function is necessary, Barr argues, because “even if all poverty and social exclusion could be eliminated, so that the entire population were middle class, there would still be a need for institutions to enable people to insure themselves and to redistribute over the life cycle.” He acknowledges that while “private institutions are often effective” at fulfilling this purpose, they “face predictable problems, which require government intervention.”[2] The most predictable and long-lasting of these problems is old age.

https://manhattan.institute/article/the-overextended-retirement-state