40 million young people apparently agree with Rick Perry: According to a new study by iOme Challenge.Org, fully 50% of Generation Y believe Social Security won’t exist when they try to collect on their “investment” in 40 years.

[Data was collected last month from a representative sample of 642 Millennials. The study was sponsored by The iOme Challenge.]

Female Millennials are much more likely to believe Social Security won’t exist when they retire; 60% of the Millennials who identify as Republican are convinced it won’t exist.

That’s the good news. Now for the bad news:

Despite the skepticism, the iOme study shows that Millennials have a very low personal savings rate: 58% are not setting any money aside…none; zero! What are Millennials waiting for? For parents, educators, legislators and/or employers to give them a medal – or a pat on the head, just like always!

If I had to guess, I’d say what Millennials are waiting for is not a medal, or a pat on the head, but enough money so that (they think) they can start saving. Savings growth appears small at first, and there’s always that matter of the next thing to buy, whatever that is.

If this nation was serious about promoting saving, of course, we wouldn’t tax savings, and we wouldn’t tax capital gains from investments either. (The reason we do tax capital gains is to stick it to Warren Buffett and those other evil rich people.) If this nation was serious about promoting saving, we would have consumption-based taxes instead of income taxes, and we would offer personal retirement-savings accounts, free from taxes, where savings are automatically deposited, which would make saving easier since you don’t spend what you don’t see.

Instead, we have Social Security, which doesn’t promote retirement security at all. The best retirement plan probably starts with the concept that you should assume you will receive no Social Security at all.