The end of Social Security as we know it is just 15 years away. FDR's 1935 idea worked well for two-thirds of a century, largely because in the beginning there were a great many working people paying payroll taxes to support each retiree. No more. In the 1930s there were 42 workers per retiree. This ratio had dropped to 5.1 by 1960 and 3.4 last year. By 2030 there will be just 2.1 workers paying in for every one retiree.