(2005-01-24) — To address Bush administration concerns that America’s involuntary retirement savings plan faces a so-called ‘crisis’, the Social Security Administration today unveiled a color-coded alert system to notify citizens about the relative safety of their investments.

The system offers four colors which each correspond to a simple message about your retirement investment.

Color: Green
Message: “The money we’re taking from your paycheck is somewhere safe, so don’t worry, you’re likely to get a lot of it back.”

Color: Yellow
Message: “Improvements in health care are causing people to live longer and we had to give the old people a bit of your money. Don’t worry, we’ll find more money.”

Color: Orange
Message: “Listen, about your retirement savings…uh…hey, do you want to watch some TV?”

Color: Red
Message: “You can feel good about knowing that the money you put into Social Security has helped a lot of needy seniors. A grateful nation thanks you for your personal sacrifice.”

A spokesman for the Social Security Administration said, “The new alert system will be as reliable as Social Security itself and should calm any fears stirred by all of this silly crisis talk.”