system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is Social Security, and why is my generation not going to benefit from it?
gpt
Those currently employed have a portion of their wages donated to the social security system. Meanwhile, those who have retired may be recipients of the system. The idea being to support those who worked their lives to have some sort of guaranteed income. 

The problem is, people are living longer. When first implemented, people didn't live a whole lot past the earliest age they could receive benefits (65). But these days, it's quite common for people to live decades past this age, putting a strain on the system. At it's current state, the system is predicted to be unsustainable.

But that doesn't mean the current generation won't benefit from it. It simply means it will likely be reformed to either push the age back when someone may receive benefits and/or simply reduce the benefits received by future recipients. So while older generation rely heavily on pensions and social scurity, younger generations are more likely to have other retirement accounts such as 401ks or roth iras to draw from to supplement whatever social security might offer.