On October 22nd I attended a Financial Literacy Workshop at Baruch College. This was helpful and it only added on to what I had already learned in high school when we had different workshops to help prepare us for college. Alan Chen started off by describing what social security is. This is money the government gives you after you can no longer work. He also let us know that he comes every month to give these financial literacy meetings and help people learn more to balance their budget. He noticed over the years that people don’t think about money until they have it and people don’t know how to save. He also encouraged us to get our own information and research our own ways to budget. I learned that social security is created by taxes and was established in 1935. Its meant to aid those under old-Age, survivors, and disability. Its a system in which one must work for 10 years in order to claim the earned money previously taken as taxes. I never knew you had to work exactly 10 years to get that money I thought you had to make some crazy invention and be famous to be rich. One is also allowed to retire at the age or 67 but it is suggested at the age of 70 because if social security is running sustainably one should receive 100% of their earnings. The most surprising and alarming thing I learned was that by the year 2034 the government believes social security will have run out. This is due to not enough people being able to work to sustain the people now and the inevitable decrease to the point where when we want to retire we cannot. By that time we would need to pay what we can for taxes and only receive 77%of what we earned overall. The speakers last comments and suggestion was to invest now and start getting into finances so you will be able to survive without the aid of the government.