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Ralph Alvarez, 83, works out at the Joyce Raye Patterson Senior Citizens Center on Thursday. Mr. Alvarez has been getting checks through Social Security — the federal government’s largest program — since he was 62.

The federal government is in the business of redistributing the wealth. Or of providing services its citizens value, depending on who’s running your presidential campaign.

“Redistributing the wealth” became an October rallying cry to link President Obama with socialism. People who work for a living would give more money to more people who do not work for a living.

Indeed, the largest federal program does go to people who don’t work. And the program is sure to grow.

But it deals less with giving from rich to poor and deals much more with giving from young to old.

America, for more than 70 years, has chosen to take care of its elderly with Social Security benefits. While this system is billed as workers accruing benefits over their lifetime, in reality the current workers are paying the benefits for the elderly.

Social Security is the country’s greatest expenditure.

Retiree pay alone is greater than the entire federal government’s payroll — $369 billion, compared to $253 billion in 2007 — according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Consolidated Federal Funds Report. Total Social Security benefits — including retirement pay, survivor pay, disability and supplemental pay — exceeded $623 billion in 2007.

Tom Hutton can sympathize with workers’ pain of seeing Social Security dollars sliced from paychecks.

“They probably complain then, but it’s been very good to me,” Mr. Hutton said. “Thank God for it.”

Mr. Hutton, 80, of St. Joseph, operated an optical company here for about 50 years. He said he began collecting Social Security at age 64. Last week, he was grateful to receive a $250 check from his uncle — that is, Uncle Sam.

Dr. Patrick McMurry, economics professor at Missouri Western State University, said one of Social Security’s goals is to create “social equity.”

“There is a redistributionist element to Social Security,” Dr. McMurry said.

But do people think about it that way? “No. People simply don’t understand that the money they put in is not set aside in some little account for them.”

Medicaid and Medicare are the more urgent programs, he said, and both they and Social Security are in need of policy solutions. But when Dr. McMurry thinks about whether the country is becoming more “socialized,” he said it is, but not with regard to social programs.

“I don’t like that word, but when government takes control of banks and can fire CEOs, it is,” he said. “We don’t have a term for this new paradigm.”

The roots of Social Security could be traced to the 10 Commandments: Honor thy mother and father.

American Revolutionary leader Thomas Paine argued for an inheritance tax to give benefits to every person older than 50 and a one-time payment when a person turned 21, according to the Social Security Administration. The notion was to not just provide security for all, but to guarantee a ground floor for the broader economy.

Indeed, the bottom would have to fall out of the economy before federal retirement payments began in America.

During the Great Depression, “radical calls to action” threatened capitalism and wealth, according to the Social Security Administration. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt took a middle-line approach with the federal government’s creation of Social Security. It relied — and still does rely — on worker contributions rather than explicit taxes on the rich.

Looking forward, that political salve may be the system’s downfall.

The children of the Depression, like Mr. Hutton, now give way to the children of post-World War II. The first “boomers” began collecting Social Security in 2008 (born in 1946, and reaching reduced-benefits eligibility at age 62). Many estimates from both sides of the aisle point to 2040 as the year the system goes broke in its current form.

Unless things change, it appears that you’ll receive benefits if you were born before about 1978.

Or to put it another way, consider saving now if you plan to live past the year 2040.

Joe Blumberg can be reached at joeblumberg@npgco.com.