Manchester, N.H. -- Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Monday proposed allowing younger workers still decades away from retirement to bypass Social Security and instead choose private investment accounts that would be subject to stock market gyrations.

The former House speaker, who has risen in the polls, would allow younger workers to take their share of the payroll tax that funds Social Security and put it in a private account.

Employers would still pay their share of the tax, which would be used to pay benefits for current retirees. But it would create a funding shortfall that Gingrich brushed off.

"That gap is more than covered by the savings" that would come from giving states control of 185 social-welfare programs, Gingrich told reporters after a speech that laid out broad concepts but lacked key details.

Gingrich's plan would cover the near-term deficits by giving states responsibility for programs such as AmeriCorps volunteers, Section 8 public housing and Pell Grants for college students. He said states were better suited to administer those programs.

President George W. Bush offered some similar proposals for Social Security after he was re-elected in 2004, but faced stiff resistance from Democrats and some within his own party about any proposed changes to the popular program.

Gingrich is the latest Republican presidential candidate to challenge front-runner Mitt Romney in the polls.

More for you News Gingrich calls for private retirement accounts

On Friday, promising "extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America," he said he would fire school janitors and pay students to clean schools instead.

Speaking at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, he challenged laws that prevent children from working certain jobs before their mid-teens. Gingrich blamed "the core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization" for "crippling" children.

"It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid," he said.

"I tried for years to have a very simple model," he continued. "Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they'd have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."

Gingrich, who over the weekend said Occupy Wall Street protesters should "get a job" and "take a bath," suggested that poor children need to build a work ethic.