Social security was created to payments to retiring individuals in during the Great Depression. Before this, old people weren't dying in mass, but the government wasn't the one footing the bill. Instead it was retirees children, or charities. That said, the program was also created when there were much more workers than there were retirees. As the baby boomer generation continues to retire, this is more and more not the case. The program has always been a Ponzi scheme, but the boomers retiring en masse has put a particularly large amount of stress on the system.
To answer your second question, yes, but many folks retiring now, or in the near future have been told their whole working life that social security will take care of them, so they haven't saved as much as the would have otherwise. What makes the situation even more sad is that if these individuals could have invested those funds instead of paying payroll taxes (social security and medicaid/medicare), their retirement income would have been much greater AND have some more left to leave their next of kin.
To answer your second question, yes, but many folks retiring now, or in the near future have been told their whole working life that social security will take care of them, so they haven't saved as much as the would have otherwise. What makes the situation even more sad is that if these individuals could have invested those funds instead of paying payroll taxes (social security and medicaid/medicare), their retirement income would have been much greater AND have some more left to leave their next of kin.