As details of President Bush's plan for personal Social Security accounts dribble out, it appears they are neither entirely personal nor terribly secure.
For example, once people decided to divert part of their Social Security taxes into a personal account, they wouldn't be able to change their minds, and investment options would be very limited.
Upon retirement, some workers would have to use part of their personal account to buy an annuity to keep them above the poverty line. If they died soon thereafter, they wouldn't recoup the cost of the annuity.
One benefit of a personal account is that any money left at death can be passed on to heirs. But there is no guarantee the private account would provide a decent retirement income, much less an inheritance.
-- Fees: The Social Security Administration estimates that workers would pay 0.3 percent of their personal-account assets each year to cover administrative and investment-management costs. That's much cheaper than the average fees charged by stock mutual funds (1.25 percent) and bond funds (0.8 percent).
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