You dont want to think of it as welfare because you collect it and it would hurt your feelings, but the fact is that when the law was passed it was called welfare.
The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Why Social Security is WelfareWe don't call Social Security "welfare" because it's a pejorative term, and politicians don't want to offend. So their rhetoric classifies Social Security as something else when it isn't.
Here is how I define a welfare program: First, it taxes one group to support another group, meaning it's pay-as-you-go and not a contributory scheme where people's own savings pay their later benefits. And second, Congress can constantly alter benefits, reflecting changing needs, economic conditions and politics. Social Security qualifies on both counts.
Let's start with its $2.6 trillion trust fund. Doesn't this prove that people's payroll taxes were saved to pay for future benefits, disconnecting them from our larger budget problems? Well, no. Since the 1940s, Social Security has been a pay-as-you-go program. Most benefits are paid by payroll taxes on today's workers; in 2010, those taxes covered 91 percent of benefits. The trust fund's $2.6 trillion would provide only 3.5 years of benefits, which totaled about $700 billion in 2010.
The trust fund serves mainly to funnel taxes to recipients, and today's big surplus is an accident, as Charles Blahous shows in his book "Social Security: The Unfinished Work." In 1983, when the trust fund was nearly exhausted, a presidential commission proposed fixes but underestimated their effects. The large surplus "just developed. It wasn't planned," the commission's executive director said later. Even so, the surplus will disappear as the number of retirees rises.
Similarly, Congress has repeatedly altered benefits. From 1950 to 1972, it increased them nine times, including a doubling in the early 1950s. In 1972, it indexed benefits to inflation. People didn't complain when benefits rose, but possible cuts now trigger howls that a "contract" is being broken. Not so. In a 1960 decision ( Flemming v. Nestor ), the Supreme Court expressly rejected the argument that people have a contractual right to Social Security. It cited the 1935 Social Security Act: "The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this Act is hereby reserved to Congress." Congress can change the program whenever it wants.
All this makes Social Security "welfare."
Robert J. Samuelson - Why Social Security is welfare