In self defense I have conducted my work life and savings life as if SS didn't exist. I have put in to the system the required amount over the last 45 years of working, and will participate in Medicare because they give me no choice...but could do without it if I had to. I don't calculate SS into my retirement plans financially. Whatever I receive I will consider a bonus. btw I am 2 years away from retirement. I look at my friends that have no alternative plans and are going to be totally dependent upon SS, and I just shake my head.
We are retired and live very comfortably on what we saved. We are eligible for Social Security but don't take it because we consider it old age pension insurance from a shady insurance company that may or may not be around in case of financial catastrophe. We will take it when we are 70 (maximum benefit) and just save it. It was obvious decades ago that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme that should be discounted for retirement planning (even though I paid much more than I will ever get back, even accounting for inflation). Yeah, the system could have been fixed years ago but any thoughtful person who knew anything about politics realized it would not happen. Now it exists solely to create social and political division between generations (like DEI does with race and gender). The worst things about Social Security are that it deludes too many people into thinking they don't need to save what they need for their own retirement, it diverts that money from productive investments, and it produces prodigious catfights and social divisions that only give crooked politicians more power.
Sure hope it’s still there when you’re 70! We took sort of the opposite approach. Started taking it as soon as eligible, even though a lesser amount, and invested it. Even though it was a lesser amount, those funds we paid in are now making us dividends. Over the years, we’ve made more on these funds than we would have taking a larger amount later. Just another way to approach it.
I can see your point about taking it early, but not so sure about the better return on investment (ROI). Social security increases about 8% each year you wait to take it. There was an additional 6% COLA in 2022 for a total ROI of a 14% increase in a year when both the stock and bond markets fell. Typical investment portfolios were down 15% in 2022 while the delayed social security payment increased 14%. Interest bearing savings accounts were yielding only a few percent. Investment portfolios this year are up about 5% which is still less than the 8% guaranteed return on SS payment. It's true that SS could be gone by the time I begin to realize the investment, but if that happens most other investments will tank by then too. For the time being, a guaranteed 8+% ROI seems reasonable on something I have never expected to be there anyway. Not saying you are wrong, just another perspective.
true, it may not be there, though, & even if it is, govt policies make it worth less & less every year -- inflation, rising costs for the "free" services, taxes -- eat away at what you get until it will only pay for utilities as it was intended. people weren't taxed to death on the property they own when it was enacted, but now you are. you may have paid it off, but through taxes, you rent it from the govt, who will gladly take it from you & sell it below value & put you on the street. illegals & foreigners are much more in need of your money & property, peasant!
We do the same. I'm 58, husband 64. I don't think I'll get anything and fortunately don't need to. We're self employed and I can't see my husband ever really retiring (although hopefully he'll work less and travel more!) and even then, barring the world going to hell in a handbasket, we'll both still be making an income from the businesses. Building businesses as well as saving for retirement are a much better ROI than anything the govt would do, and we knew that in our early 30s (at the latest - can't remember NOT knowing it, but we actively were doing something about it by then).
Yes, I’m 46 and I’m building a career that I won’t need to retire from, and I don’t plan to. I’ll continue to do my best with what I have, save where I can, and practice the stoic mindset for the lean times. I’ve lived on little before, and I could do it again.
good luck, bad health can happen in the twinkling of an eye.... we thought the same, but govt doesn't think like you do, they only look for more money, more power, more control. we thought we'd live on what we saved, tour the world, but we're selling things, not going anywhere, because govt inflation, higher taxes, hogher fees for those supposedly "free" services, & inability to help Americans has eaten up our savings. we've been very conservative, but govt happened, & then bad health struck, & we can no longer work. govt will find a way to beat you out of every dime you have saved.
There is no need to defend yourself for getting something you paid for. The kitty is wrong. Kick the kitty into the corner and beat it with a rolled-up fake news paper.
Agree its a Ponzi scheme, but some people paid through the nose for it over and over if they were self-employed. I owned a business and had over 100 employees and paid FICA tax for decades on their behalf (since half of SS/Medicare is paid by employee and half by employer). I lost track of how many hundreds of thousands of dollars I personally shelled out on FICA for employees, and now the joke is that none of it's there. Ironically my partners and I knew SS was a scam so we fully funded a 401K for all employees so at least they have that now (way more $ than social security). Too bad SS wasn't set up to mandate employers to fund 401K plans instead of flushing it down the drain in DC. But of course the point all along was to accumulate power and money in DC for politicians to use to buy votes and divide people. Mission accomplished.
Just spit balling here, but is there any analysis of what SS would look like if all the people who didn’t pay into the system (40 quarters) but still getting benefits were taken off the rolls? That was never the design of the original system. Like a lot of good things the original is never enough, we can make it better.
Yes. Like people on disability all their life or a majority of it. Take those numbers out and I would be interested to see the results. It’s more nuanced than everyone retires at 65 and starts collecting social security.
They were told they paid for it. Regardless, they had no choice anyway, they were forced to "invest." The average Joe doesn't know a Ponzi scheme from The Fonz. Portraying him as some sort of fool for not seeing SS for what it was isn't fruitful.
The overall sentiment, right or wrong is, - to quote from The Goodfellas,
I try to tell my 80-year-old mother this, but it just ends up in an argument. She stopped working when I was born in 1971. She and my dad got two checks until he died at 74 in 2008 (he'd retired about 9 years earlier). Since then, she's gotten only his check (over $2k a month). She doesn't even call it social security. She calls it her paycheck. And she really thinks that because she and my father paid into it, she deserves it. I've showed her the numbers and how she got everything they paid in years and years ago and it doesn't matter. They paid in and they were promised and that's how it goes. And she's a conservative Republican too.
If I got to keep the dollars they took out of my paycheck for four decades who knows what it may have been an investment towards - like a house - that also would be worth alot more now. You arent doing both sides of the equation.
Instead the government spent my earned money on others- probably on wars but also on social services that likely benefited many children that are of age now.
In addition to my reduced paycheck, I responsibly paid for over priced private health insurance year after year - never having benefits, never seeing doctors, never in a hospital. I was young and healthy.
No younger generation is being robbed in some way that I as a boomer was not robbed. Put the blame where it belongs and stop sowing seeds of generational division. It is only a Ponzi schem because the government is CORRUPT.
Perhaps you posted this question to me earlier in the thread but now reading all these responses clearly the article provoked divisiveness. I was responding to this early comment by the I author (I think) : "but they didn't pay for it.people paid for about 1/3 of it and are extracting the rest from current taxpayers." I am one of the "they" being accused of not paying for "it." I didnt ask the government to reduce my paycheck or to be in cahoots with Big Med extracting hundreds of dollars from me for decades for a product I didnt use. I could have invested that money specically towards savings for my later years. In the 1980s, for example, CDs were at 14%. That is a fact.
Ok, you’ve labeled it. So have a million other people including Senator John McCain. That doesn’t change anything. Your solution is to cut off the boomers because they paid too little and live too long. It’s not the boomers fault. FDR and his brain trust created the ponzi long before the first boomer arrived. I ran my numbers a decade ago and had those geniuses in DC put the FICA “contributions” instead in 10 year treasuries and reinvested (power of compound interest), at retirement the value could have been rolled into a lifetime annuity that paid more than the expected SS benefits. But then I wouldn’t have paid enough of the skim and the sharing piece of all the early ponzi members and other eligible beneficiaries. How many bad decisions do we sustain and pay for over a hundred years (income tax, Fed Reserve, etc)? Yes, it’s not going away anytime soon.
I kinda think you cherry picked the dates to gather your data from. Why stop at 2018 for median income? Probably because you noticed to median increased by about 25% between 2018 and 2022. Additionally why use median instead of average? The point is that you used the numbers to best illustrate the conclusion you wanted to draw.I'm not trying to say SSA is not a ponzi scheme but I prefer a more honest comparison.
That may be true but inflation is off the charts, and the economy is fucked. Best to use numbers that are before shit hit the fan, and pray we return to something similar to normal eventually. Anything after 2020 is basically made up or so atypical it is best not to touch until more time passes.
The kitty is wrong. Dead wrong. My wife does not like dead wrong kitties. Kitty wants to ignore inflation and focus on nominal dollars. Kitty also ignores the disability issue. Bad Kitty. .
First, the solution is simple. Temporarily Eliminate the cap on the withholding tax.
Second. Divorce Disability from SS. Force those who want disability coverage going forward to pay for it.
Third, reform the current disability scam (before you start taking away peoples SS money)
Once these things are done then a permanent solution can be worked on and worked out.
My wife and I are both 68. We both began working at age 12. You could do that back in the 60s. We both paid in to SS for 53 years. Took SS at 62 while still working part time as we have zero trust in the govt.
I look at it like my gun. You can pry it out of my cold dead hands. It needs to be fixed. But not on the backs of people who paid in for 5-6 decades and may have arranged their affairs accordingly.
The kitties calculations are also quite suspect and rely on far too many assumptions and ignore inflation. I was taxed the max every year from 1981-2010, 29 years. I know how much I paid in. I took it early. My break even, in nominal terms, is 17 years 7 months. Call it 18. If I’m alive I’ll be 85, 2 years past my life expectancy. In real terms, adjusted for inflation, I’d need to live to about 150 to get my money back.
Here is the reality. SS recipients have been badly screwed since 1987 when Greenspan conspired with Reagan to change how inflation was measured by BLS…with the goal of reducing future COLA payments. Greenspan projected a savings of 150 billion over 10 years and multiples of that going forward. So the most financially vulnerable segment of our society has purposefully been screwed out of billions of dollars of income over the last 45 years by the govt. No surprise.
I still have the original copy of the pamphlet my grandfather got at work in November 1936, prior to the tax going into effect in 1937. The original tax amount was 1%.
SS tax and funding was never intended to fund a disability program. Most of that program is a scam, that statement is based on firsthand personal knowledge from being directly involved. But when Disability became a part of SS in 1956-60 the funding scheme didn’t change. In 1960, when Disability (for all ages) was added, within one year more than half a million people were on Disability.
Want to fix SS? Start with the disability scam. And leave my SS alone.
I'd be more impressed if you took that gun and pointed it at random young people and took their money directly, instead of subcontracting the violence to the same organization that pointed a gun at you and made you pay in. You were robbed and now you want others to be robbed to make up for it.
So you are asking my generation to suffer so you don’t have to? Got it.
You obviously are not one to (1) grasp a solution when it’s presented or (2) pay attention to the actual reality and the facts about that reality.
Was I robbed? Absolutely. Would I like to see future generations not get robbed? Absolutely. I could have made that clear.
Kitty gets most of it wrong. Hence the ‘solution’ he proposes is DOA. His argument looks good, but only because he makes it using nominal values. Using inflation adjusted values he can’t make it work. Which is why he wants you to focus on nominal. He’s wrong, but not stupid.
SS is a problem. But the solution involves more than just SS. If you look at the actual historical record, it began going off the rails about the time Disability was added in. That’s not even a Ponzi. It’s 95% outright fraud. It’s an industry. SS cannot be addressed until the Disability issue is addressed. Kitty doesn’t even bring it up. Which means both you and the cat have no actual idea what you are talking about.
I'm asking your generation to face the truth. Glad to see you admit you were robbed. I've been robbed of hundreds of thousands that has been paid out to prior generations (oh, and .EGM really ought to aim his ire at the Silents, who never paid dime 1 for Medicare before 1966 and paid 3% of wages for SS for much of their lives. That generation used the Boomers as milch cows and will wind up paying no net taxes to the Feds, having received a massive subsidy. Early Boomers too. After 1957/8, most Boomers are screwed). I've accepted that loss and wish only that it not be foisted on the young. YMMV.
As to sparing me, most of my income comes from sources that don't pay social security taxes. Interest, dividends, capital gains, pension funded from the earnings of my corporation: not a dime of SS tax paid on any of them (tho they do now charge Medicare if I earn enough). You could have done the same but didn't. Why not?
I suspect that the crackup will leave us with no money for any of this stuff, and soon. You'll get all your promised dollars, defaulted in value thanks to the Chained CPI that Trump pushed through in 2017. In your situation, I'd buy a rental property whose P&I payment is equal to your SS payments now, and then live on the rent while paying the P&I with your SS payment. It's your only easy way to avoid the inflation they intend to take back your dollars with.
Nice note, thank you for the info and perspective. I agree with all of it. I also greatly appreciate (and admit to ‘misunderestimating’ you) your ability to (1) add the SG to the issue and (2) understand the nuance of early Boomers vs late Boomers. And yeah, we’ve all been robbed on multiple fronts. I began my anti govt rants at age 12 when I got my first paycheck (1.65 per hour) and taxes were withheld. And a big chunk of my legal career was spent arguing with govt lawyers. I’m no fan. Of lawyers or the govt.
I put the ‘your screwed’ years at 55/56. Self serving perhaps as I was born in 55. But at the big company where I labored for 25 years, I watched all the early Boomers retire with full benefits and a pension after 25 years of service. But by the time I got to 25 years, all that had changed. I left with no pension and no benefits. My paralegal was 1.5 years younger than me with a couple years more service. When she left with 25 years and took a lump sum she got 1.1 million plus benefits. That was in 1999. When I bailed 2 years later (and I made a lot more money than her) all the formulas had changed. I got 200k and a clock. Great clock I will admit. A group of us sued, got our class certified, but eventually lost the lawsuit.
Lastly, I think you will appreciate this. We bailed out completely in 2011. I stopped working in 2008. We sold our house (at a loss) and moved onto our 35 ft sailboat. We still live on the boat today. Our expenses are low, we keep our income below the FED tax level, we have FL domicile (even though we don’t live there) so no state tax. No property tax. No electric, gas, or water bill. Up until 2018 we didn’t own a car. And we’ve been stacking metals since 2002. We also have something most people don’t, full mobility. If we don’t like the anchorage, marina, state, or country we are in we just move and our home goes with us. So we likely in better shape than most in that regard. We have no idea what we will do once we are too old to do ‘this’. Hopefully that’s at least a decade away.
My point wasn't really about how I planned...over the last several decades I have had a number of major setbacks (as everyone does). My point was really about the fact that I never really believed the government was going to 'save' me. It has been my experience throughout my life that no matter how badly I screwed up, nobody is coming to save me. Whether I liked it or not (and I did not!) that turned out to be good information to have. Or as Ron White might put it...That was a handy bit of information to have. :)
I was never taught about financial planning. My parents were a little older when they had me. All I was taught was to get a job with a company, work hard, retired in 40 years, and get you social security and whatever pension the company offered.
I did the same - ignored SS taxes and funded my 401k per max allowed. Less of a lifestyle during the savings years but far bigger nest egg to retire on.
Had I been allowed to save and invest my FICA taxes + employers portion too, I could have retired easily at 60...
we tried as well,but now that we've been retired a few years & bidenomics is eating oit savings up rapidly. you'll need much much more than you thought. my parents only got around $600 a month in ss. they had very reasonable dr bills, & no Medicare. they lived well because they had a paid off home & almost non-existent property taxes. we, too, own our home outright, but the yearly taxes we pay now is higher than we paid in yearly payments when our home was new. every few years, we oay in taxes tye amount of the original cost of our home. we buy it from govt over again every few years.
Our property taxes went up by $1100 this year, and these increases hurt seniors who are trying to live on fixed incomes the most. Long story - botched reassessments by the county - bottom line - this is what happens when one party is the de facto ruler for 40 years and is massively corrupt. But seniors vote and SS is the 3rd rail - no one dares touch it from either party. Interesting to see how those seniors vote when this current county government is up for re-election. I am late 50s, and don't plan to retire until I have to, self employed so I have the option of working less. We told our kids from the time they were in elementary to NOT plan on social security. One listened and is maxing 401K, the other likes to spend....
been looking into doing away with SS ( no not hitlers) but there is little way around it is there? The systems that are not SS ask even more. I checked several. If anyone finds a cheaper solution that works please post it. There were a few in Dr Hubers substack a few days ago
The problem is the money system itself. Boomers, the concern probably isn’t whether you’re getting your SS payments or not. I suspect you will. The question is how much you’ll be able to buy with the paper. COLA won’t matter because the methodology is gamed to keep the adjustments lower than they should be. We can already see the gaslighting attempts from the academic economists:
My non-financial recommendation is repair any feuds you have with friends and loved ones. It’s in all of our interests to strengthen our relationships and our communities. These state Ponzi programs are all falling apart. They are and always have been unsustainable scams. Absolutely nothing is guaranteed, nobody owes us anything, and there is no political figure coming to save us. We’re all we’ve got at this point. Just my two.
Ah, gato, why do I have this nagging feeling now in the back of my mind that you're just another elitist trying to turn us against each other...in this case, young against old? Look, some of us never made big money, okay?...because we were raising families, or didn't go to university, or weren't brilliant entrepreneurs, or we were just regular working shmos. I put 8% of my salary per year, while I was working full-time, into my 401k. It won't be nearly enough to fund the rest of my life, hoping I live long. Yup, I'm one of those horrible people who will actually *need* my SSA "entitlement"....the one I started paying into at age 15, that my husband, as a self-employed person, had the privilege of paying into *double*, that we had no choice but to do so. I voted for politicians back in the day who wanted to privatize SS, to no avail. Believe me, I'd rather have my compound interest. That being said, I also live *very* modestly, and will likely be saving some of my small SSA income once I start receiving it.
Anyway, how is your current diatribe of haves vs. have-nots any better than Joe Biden's disgusting "We're losing patience with you dirty unvaxxed vermin" (to paraphrase) speech of 2021? It's not.
See above, Ryan. My kind of older parents were never taught to plan financially and they never taught me. It was just work for one company for 40 years like my dad and grandmother did and then live off social security and whatever pension the company may have offered. I didn't know about any of this stuff until well into adulthood.
Similar story. My dad worked for union pacific for 38 years. Got a pension and sits in his lazy boy sun-up to sundown and probably would never get it. I can't blame him.
I didn't figure it out until early 40's. It's amazing what a person can "figure out" when they have to.
Irrespective I doubt there's many who have "figured" out much....as evidence by c19.
I just think it's going to take tough times for people to wake up.
The elites have demonstrated that they have plenty of issues at their disposal to turn people against each other, but I don't think SS and Medicare are two of them. People who have planned their lives around those benefits will be in for tragic disappointment when the house of cards comes down (when they are at their most vulnerable).
If Gato's analysis is wrong, you might have a point. If Gato's analysis is right, then you are blaming him for a problem that was baked into this Ponzi scheme (Thereby killing the messenger). If we acknowledge the problem now, we can at least entertain transitioning away from a scheme that will only create exponentially greater damage over time. The "Transition" will be brutally painful, but how can we in good conscience insist that future generations bear the brunt of this (And I am not sure we will escape it)?
Gato's fiscal analysis is undoubtedly correct; what I quibble with is his assumption that we the people should've not only known 60 years ago that our leaders were liars and cheats, but also should have risen up and wrested control of the SSA from them to take back our money and redesign the entire system. At this point, there will almost certainly be no "transition." It will be more of an abrupt and cataclysmic train wreck....and all the cash in the world won't make much of a difference in one's chances of survival. What *may* make a difference is being well-situated geographically, having access to fresh water, and possessing the physical skills, tools, and knowledge to provide at least minimally for oneself. Good luck with that.
I started this security plan right after I lost my job for not taking the experiment. Pay off all debt, earn just enough keeping tax minimal/nil, learn all skills to be self reliant (solar, cultivation, butchering, handtools, survival techniques etc) move to a remote area with access to fresh water year round. Enjoy the easy, stress free llife while waiting for the train wreck. It's Very good advice LP.
Saying nothing? That's why we *voted*...that's how government was supposed to work, back in the day. I suppose it worked about as well as GenX's valiant efforts to rise up and stop the vaxxocide that was foist upon us in 2021...oh wait, that didn't work so well, either. GenX should hope that whoever's left 50 years from now doesn't personally blame them for the sh*tshow of the last 4 years.
And my snark is not directed at you, Sim.Comm. In fact, this whole discussion saddens me...because once again, we have people who are sure that they "know better" than us rubes, trying to decide who should get basic Constitutional rights (like voting).
Personally? I voted for privatization long ago. And I agree, the solution is not to continue the same failed system. But I think there's little chance of re-designing the system, at this point. Change...in the form of collapse...will likely be foist upon us all, and my guess is none of us will be happy about it.
You weren't there were you? Things happen in life that are not planned. All you wonderful pre planned people that are assuming
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you will have those careers in the future I wish good luck to. Life doesn't work that way always. You have to depend on THE LORD GOD to provide. HE provides in various ways. But you can't nor shouldn't look down on people that did not have your blessings. Be grateful for them and realize where they came from.
The anger and anxiety over learning that mistakes in the past could lead to catastrophe in our present could lead one to find a dumping site for those bad feelings, ergo, the need to find fault with people from the past "who should have known better." Fact is they didn't know better, and when people started to raise concerns, people they thought they could trust lied to them early and often.
People became accustomed to thinking that voting for political representatives unburdened them of having to learn about what their representatives were actually doing and how it would impact them. Politicians tell us what we want to hear so we vote for them and then we go back to living our lives while paying no attention to them. SS and Medicare are what happen when people pay no attention over generations.
Bastiat was writing about how 'legal plunder' as he describes it, destroys civilizations nearly a century before the new deal era.
People contemporary to the passage of SS knew it was doomed to failure and spoke out against it.
Truth be told SS has failed multiple times since its inception hence the necessity to continually increase the percentage of the levy. That alone is first hand evidence of its insolubility.
When I was 60 I received a letter from the SS detailing what I had paid in over 40 years and what I was eligible to take out beginning in 7 years. By my calculation I would get back in nominal dollars what I paid in if I lived to 104, sans interest, of course. Note: I have been self employed these 40 years and, as such, have paid both employer and employee share of FICA (15.3%).
I know that, even if I survive to 104, that this is the worst investment I have ever made, and would happily take today 1/2 of what I have already paid in a lump sum in exchange for opting out of the system going forward. The government will likely means test me out of my benefits anyway when the fiscal reality becomes an exigency.
Your point made concerning rates of return in the private sector is excellent. If the American worker knew how much wealthier they would be if they had been paid the full value of their labor, then invested the part confiscated by the government, there would be an instantaneous revolutionary impetus.
The SS program has been the biggest wealth destroyer in history and now it is just a matter, for most people, of getting their share of the rotting carcass before there is nothing left. Anyone in Washington that has ever seen the budget knows this, yet they are too craven to do anything about it.
We are doomed if there is not an awakening. The realities of the fisc cannot be neglected forever.
Not all ‘investment strategies’ are secure and insure one that the funds will be available when one needs them. Look at what happened to people’s ‘private investments and 401K plans’ in the financial ‘crash’ of 2008-2009? Better to invest in a “load” or two with an ‘investment group’ south of the border! 😉🤨
When looking at actual numbers, the “security” part of social security still does not make mathematical sense. If you look at my example where I would receive back the exact amount I paid when reaching 104 years of age after drawing payments for 37 years. I started paying into the system 84 years earlier. And this only accounts for what I had paid in until age 60 (no payments into the system after that). So, in effect, if I kept my money and simply put it into a pillow case at 0% return, I would have all my future receipts from social security in a lump sum at age 60, 44 years earlier than system will have returned them to me. The 0% scenario is, of course, idiotically pessimistic, but even on those terrible terms social security is far worse.
You fail to account for the comeback it’s made since. The approximately 14,000 on the big board when the crash started is now at 34,000. That is damn better than whatever you’re proposing,
Here kitty, kitty. Come closer so I can slap you! Social Security IS NOT an entitlement! I paid into SS my entire working life to get back a small amount of what I paid in and I planned my savings and investments on the assumption it wouldn't be available by the time I was old enough to collect.
Welfare is an entitlement. Giving money and benefits to criminals who illegally cross our borders is an entitlement. Reparations for nonexistent harms is an entitlement. Corporate welfare is an entitlement. SS if anything is a loss, but I'll take what I can get because it is mine and I earned it! The same is true of medicare which I also have to currently pay for. Tough titties, kitty, if you don't like it.
UncleWiggly does have a point. Most of his last paragraph is 100% correct. As to the loss, it depends on his personal variations in time and returns. I can say that it was a mandated deduction from his income, he has every right to expect a return, whether that return has increased from the contributions is also debatable, but he should get back at least what he's put in.
I can say that I too am not dependent on SS, now or in the future. I can say that from my experience, working 35 years in a middle income job, making my mandatory contributions to SS and Medicare, my numbers are higher than what you projected in your estimates. I began making detailed records of income and expenses about halfway through my career. So, in the last 18 years, of those 35 years, my contributions were $120K, and the employers match was another $120K. Making the assumption that the first 17 years was about half that, the account should be around $360K. I doubt I will see that much between 65 and 78, or even longer should that be the case.
Ponzi scheme? Yes 100%. Reason to blame a generation? Not in the least. Is the government's malfeasance a reason to steal more money from a generation? Also no.
Anyone with even a modicum of intelligence has known for the last 40 years that SS is a promise being made with no honest consideration given as to how it will be kept.
You yourself admit to planning with this very expectation in mind.
The money ain't there, and the only possible way to actually get the money is to continue to victimize your children and grand children to an even greater extent than you were.
You cannot right the wrongs of the past by wronging those in the future.
"I was robbed. Justice demands that a Leviathan rob someone else to make me whole."
Actually, SS isn't thine. It was capital ripped from a working generation that is much poorer than your retired generation is. Also, that working generation reflects the demographics of today, while your generation looks like America 65 years ago: 90% white. Don't expect a majority minority working group to pay out 15% of their wages to support a bunch of old white folks much longer.
This is why I switched from "conservative" in my naïve youth to anarchro-capitalist many years ago (i.e. fringe libertarian), and why our founding fathers assumed we'd need to have a little revolution every 2-3 generations if we were to remain free.
Even the most idealized state - that which starts with noble intentions to carry out its selfless charter - becomes "self-interested" in time; an organism unto itself with a survival instinct. It inevitably usurps more and more power in that interest, thus attracting the charlatan, parasite class to benefit from our diminishing individual freedoms and autonomy.
This can be seen in all facets of life touched by government. Before long, you have what El Gato has so eloquently laid out for us in these last two posts. It is always this way. Government "programs" exist for the ultimate benefit of the state, not for the people it supposedly serves. Ponzi schemes abound.
Never forget that power corrupts even the most "benevolent king" and as that power coalesces, the corruption and rot spread to all that benefit from its ill begotten riches.
We will continue the descent towards bondage until we get fed up somewhere down the road and throw off the yoke of absolutism. Thus, the cycle begins anew.
Yeah, gato malo, post-boomer hindsight is 20-20. Those of us who lived through the ponzi scheme had no choice but to participate. Other generations have to be tutored by you (thanks!) to see the math!
You definitely get part of it: making other provisions for retirement when the feds are draining your paycheck for their programs is challenging. There were lots of other scams going on for someone born in 1954, too: wars, gas shortages, basic rights and wealth grabs on a regular financial crisis/ bubble-bursting basis. And once a person retires, one often pays MORE for Medicare health premiums than one did to private insurers before retirement. Not to mention that Medicare is first and foremost a rationing system with massive surveillance capabilities. We don’t get to opt-out of Medicare at any point, but we probably should not use it if we can pay direct and protect our privacy. Not using it could save you from federally-mandated hospital protocols and other pharmacological harms. This is the decision-point some of us are at now. May it serve as a tiny dot of illumination for younger generations.
The problem arises when many people are living paycheck to paycheck with nothing left over to make alternative plans. I may not be one of those, but I’ve certainly worked with many in that situation. Those of us who were fortunate to make other plans, I suspect, are in a minority, especially in today’s Biden economy!
I agree...I wish I could ‘opt out’ of the mandatory payment for Medicare that is taken out every month from one’s SS.
I rarely had any regular ‘health insurance’ over the course of my adult working life. I made do without and I never went to the doctor. (And was not sick.) If I did I participate in the ‘sysytem’, it was at a low cost community healthcare center, that was an income based system and charged according to one’s income. Now that I have Medicare ‘health insurance’ I don’t even want to avail myself to use it, because I am seriously ‘down’ on the Industrial Medical Healthcare Delivery System.
You can. Move to Italy and stop paying. When I worked the numbers years ago, the mandatory participation in the Italian health system was less than the required SS parts B and D. And the drugs and doctor visits were lower priced.
You won't be covered by Medicare, but it's screwed.
I expect that the heroic measures that both benefit and curse us here in the USA are far less prevalent there. I do need to work on my Italian before moving.
I haven't yet made the move but I researched it beforehand. Medicare Part A comes for free. You have to pay for parts B and D, and you have to request that they do so. My guess is there's a process to ask them to stop, but better never to start. It's an issue for a few years down the road.
My spouse has kept her company insurance and so does not pay part B or part D.
Yes re the system. Not having perfect health, I am just navigating the morass of trying to get out it. Basically, you have to keep Part A, which kicks in for hospital coverage, and file an affidavit with Medicare to drop Part B ( doctor visits). Part D is Rxs, which I think would also terminate. If one drops Medicare B, I don’t think you can keep supplemental private insurance, so you are going all direct pay. Medicare has the effect of stripping you of the choice to pay for private insurance. Of course, we could move to Italy which has big problems collecting taxes and is not popular with the EU bankers.
"Those of us who lived through the ponzi scheme had no choice but to participate."
Uh, sure you did. If you were incorporated you could have paid out your entire wage as pension contributions, deducted from corporate income before any tax was applied to them. Takes a bit of work but you could have avoided paying anything to SS. You just didn't hate it enough.
You left out the part where the $$ that we do receive from SS (that we paid into) is also being taxed, in my case at 28%. So it goes right back into the politicians...er, I mean the government’s coffers. And in the case of widowed people, you can only collect either your, or your late spouse’s benefit, not both, even though both were partners paid in (assuming both spouses were employed, which is a pretty safe assumption in there economic times.) There are all manner of ways that the government has (and has always had) of screwing the average citizen out of their money).
You’re right! SS is a lot like IRAs and 401Ks where you get hit with big taxes if you have an emergency and need to withdraw. Medicare is thought of by some as an entitlement rather than a self-funded program. I think there are many people who don’t realize how much the Medicare premiums are, either. A problem I have had is finding a direct pay doctor who has opted out of Medicare. They are scarce, and mostly near big cities.
Thank you, I should be OK when I retire next year but if I’m not, I’m at least healthy enough to pick up work or start my own business. I’d rather not, but at least it’s an option.
Not at all. I waited until my full retirement age to collect (66 years, 2 months) so I didn’t have to worry about how much money I earn, as I’m still working. And since my income was higher than my late husband’s, I didn’t take his benefits. So all the money he paid in to SS from the age of 18 until he passed away at 54 is gone for good. Except for the $255 that everyone receives, presumably to pay for a grave marker 🙄.
Ah, excuse my sexism. I had a 2/3rds probability that you earned less than your husband. Go with the odds.
I've had two male friends whose wives pre-deceased them who were surprised and delighted to find out they could draw on survivor benefits at age 60, or draw their spouse's benefit at full retirement age and wait on their own until age 70, switching then to the higher benefit. For one it was a pleasant reminder of a dearly departed spouse, and for the other it was repayment of the $500,000 his wife had cost the family in a contentious divorce.
I guess the differential in payments was high enough that taking your husband's payment at 66/2 and letting your own build until 70 was a money-losing proposition. I ran the payback numbers for a friend who would have to have waited until 2036 before increased payments from retiring later made up for lost benefits. Of course, Social Security is projected to have to cut benefits 25% in 2034 if nothing changes, so taking up front now seems the wiser choice. I told him, as he is still working, to take the money and set it aside and use the interest it throws off to supplement future benefits when he needs it.
Hoping you're blessed enough not to need the payment for a long time.
I have known it was a ponzi scheme since my first job in High School, and through my whole working career, where I also interacted with many who were destitute living on meager SS and disability checks. Just enough to stay alive to feed the matrix system with a little more tax juice ... The crime was that unless one was self-employed there were scant few jobs that did not mandate (familiar word these days) FICA "contributions".
The story line isn't one of blaming a generation (I don't think), the real plot is the fallacy of gov't welfare programs that are only designed to gain votes. I am of the belief that EVERY gov't program fits this paradigm, or at least I cannot think of one that doesn't. The worst is yet to come when this socialized medical system crashes under the fouled theatrical promises of delusional criminals (politicians used as human meat puppets for the pharmaceutical and insurance billionaires).
You must mean the “subsidized medical insurance system”. The Industrial Medical Healthcare Delivery System in the U.S.A. is ALL about the $$$...it’s not a System that is ‘socialized’ in any way. If one has ‘better insurance’, one’s supposedly gets better care, and can see any physician or healthcare provider that “takes their insurance”!
I see your point, and somewhat agree on the difference between socialized and subsidized. But, without the mandate to have "insurance", the mandate to pay into the subsidy programs, and most importantly the mandate to the vast majority of medical providers to adhere to and accept what the "insurance" conglomerates mandate as an acceptable fee, we are back to the socialization (or maybe more properly the fascistic) model (government mandates goods and services, following the needs of the industry it pretends to regulate, funded by mandatory revenues from the populace).
I agree it is all about the money, that is taken from the average citizen to line the pockets of politicians, their lobbyist fluffers and the industry whales making sure there's always 10% for some "big guy".
The largest employer in the country, is the country. The largest industry (health "care") is run by the largest employer in the country. Sounds like garbage to me. Government (anything) is THE problem.
Yes! I forgot about the Obamacare ‘mandate’s, that everyone was required to get some type of health insurance. I never did, and somehow ‘skirted’ around the mandate and coasted into Medicare when I turned 65.
So I see your thinking from the Obamacare POV! The healthcare insurers are the ones that are totally ‘driving’ the Medical Industrial Healthcare Delivery System ‘bus’. As well as the U.S. government with Medicare and Medicaid.
Entitlement: my entitlement to have others pay to provide me with what I don’t provide for myself. The National Insurance Fund was started in 1948 in Britain, supposedly to fund the cradle to the grave welfare state: health, sickness & unemployment benefit and State pension. The Minister responsible for the scheme/scam, remarked: “The great secret about the National Insurance Fund is, there ain’t no fund.” Compulsory National Insurance Contributions (employer and employee) were not hypothecated, but just paid into the Treasury. Well the last laugh was on the Minister responsible, who resigned in protest in 1950 because the NIC wasn’t funding the scam, but being used to rearm the military somewhat depleted after 5 years of war. This was good politics, because the Labour Government had Socialised the economy, nationalising industry and utilities, and health, so the industries involved in rearmament, iron & steel, ship building, coal, aircraft production, weapons, heavy engineering were all State owned and could fulfil the promise of plenty of jobs. This just shifted money from one part of the economy to another but created no wealth and devoured it.
It was realised in the 1950s the pension ‘fund’ was empty and so an additional compulsory contribution was introduced. Then in the 1960s that second ‘fund’ was replaced by another, which was credited with only part of the contributions an individual had previously made. People weren’t happy. The Thatcher Government tried to encourage people to take out private pensions, and part of your contributions to the State scam could be diverted to this. However many companies had their own schemes and you could not opt out of the State scheme for a private scheme if this were the case. By now it was very confused, because workers were more mobile, not staying like before with a company for their whole working life. People then ended up with a number of paid-up small pensions. In the late 90s, the Labour Chancellor changed the tax rules regarding share dividends and pension funds. It constituted a raid on pension funds worth billions to the Exchequer and meant many funds would be making reduced payouts or near bankrupt. This helped cause a pension crisis resulting in women’s retirement age of 60 being increased to 65 in line with men - equality - then pension age increased to 67, and I think the plan is for it to be put up to 70. Another triumph for Socialism and Statism.
well,m we currently spend more on SS, medicare, medicaid and other transfer programs + interest on debt than we take in from all taxes combined, so i'm not sure how you get there. we're literally in deficit before we spend a nickel on defense.
this is not to say that we could not save a ton by avoiding stupid wars that win us nothing and cost us much, but even if it went to zero, the "entitlements" would still have us in deficit.
How much of that debt was accumulated for overly large defense expenditures? Federal debt in 1980 was less than the interest we will pay this year. Reagan began piling up debt for a defense buildup. We never got the peace dividend as the neocons encouraged Saddam to invade Kuwait in 1990.
So, add 90% of debt interest to Veteran's costs to the defense budget. It's probably 1.8trillion this year.
How much is fair? a 50% cut? 40% 70%? Means tested so some of the largest lifetime contributors get nada, screwed out of hundreds of thousands in their lifetime?
I was in healthcare for many, many years as an entrepreneur. I can say with certainty that the moment when total cost of a medical service was separated from a consumer decision, the costs spiraled out of control. Combine that with massive provider paperwork and the provider costs also spiraled out of control.
Now a consumer only cares about the deductible, not total cost.
Maybe it's time to start a company that produces cat food that humans can eat. That, or a euthanasia service.
I mean, obviously those Boomers are Useless Eaters.
in Belgium where I used to live, they said the retirement funds would be empty by the time dad retired. He has retired 30 years ago. The retirement funds are still paying. Probably the same as what we were told with oil as kids - when in school they told us the oil reserves would be empty by 2000. Lots and lots more oil are pumped up and it is now 23 years later and still going strong. I wonder where the oil comes from, just read that it is not from fossilized veggies and that must be the case, otherwise it would be long gone.
The way I see it is this: life is all about taking calculated risks: mine paid off fine, I know of plenty of criminals who ended up in prison for life for the sake of a few thousand quid, and a few who ended up with a life of luxury in Spain - my risks were more ethical, less dramatic, and on average, rather more profitable. Tough titty, innit?
In self defense I have conducted my work life and savings life as if SS didn't exist. I have put in to the system the required amount over the last 45 years of working, and will participate in Medicare because they give me no choice...but could do without it if I had to. I don't calculate SS into my retirement plans financially. Whatever I receive I will consider a bonus. btw I am 2 years away from retirement. I look at my friends that have no alternative plans and are going to be totally dependent upon SS, and I just shake my head.
We are retired and live very comfortably on what we saved. We are eligible for Social Security but don't take it because we consider it old age pension insurance from a shady insurance company that may or may not be around in case of financial catastrophe. We will take it when we are 70 (maximum benefit) and just save it. It was obvious decades ago that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme that should be discounted for retirement planning (even though I paid much more than I will ever get back, even accounting for inflation). Yeah, the system could have been fixed years ago but any thoughtful person who knew anything about politics realized it would not happen. Now it exists solely to create social and political division between generations (like DEI does with race and gender). The worst things about Social Security are that it deludes too many people into thinking they don't need to save what they need for their own retirement, it diverts that money from productive investments, and it produces prodigious catfights and social divisions that only give crooked politicians more power.
Sure hope it’s still there when you’re 70! We took sort of the opposite approach. Started taking it as soon as eligible, even though a lesser amount, and invested it. Even though it was a lesser amount, those funds we paid in are now making us dividends. Over the years, we’ve made more on these funds than we would have taking a larger amount later. Just another way to approach it.
yes, we are doing the same.
Get it now, invest at a better rate
I can see your point about taking it early, but not so sure about the better return on investment (ROI). Social security increases about 8% each year you wait to take it. There was an additional 6% COLA in 2022 for a total ROI of a 14% increase in a year when both the stock and bond markets fell. Typical investment portfolios were down 15% in 2022 while the delayed social security payment increased 14%. Interest bearing savings accounts were yielding only a few percent. Investment portfolios this year are up about 5% which is still less than the 8% guaranteed return on SS payment. It's true that SS could be gone by the time I begin to realize the investment, but if that happens most other investments will tank by then too. For the time being, a guaranteed 8+% ROI seems reasonable on something I have never expected to be there anyway. Not saying you are wrong, just another perspective.
My wife and I are doing the same.
I’m with you on this one Judy. Take it asap because it might not be there later.
That was our thought as well.
Exactly
Sadly, my town has formally and officially signed onto the "DEI" circus train, so I must: votebradfordhutchinsonmayor.com
"I'm with the government and I'm here to help." That delusion truly is the Road to Serfdom.
true, it may not be there, though, & even if it is, govt policies make it worth less & less every year -- inflation, rising costs for the "free" services, taxes -- eat away at what you get until it will only pay for utilities as it was intended. people weren't taxed to death on the property they own when it was enacted, but now you are. you may have paid it off, but through taxes, you rent it from the govt, who will gladly take it from you & sell it below value & put you on the street. illegals & foreigners are much more in need of your money & property, peasant!
We do the same. I'm 58, husband 64. I don't think I'll get anything and fortunately don't need to. We're self employed and I can't see my husband ever really retiring (although hopefully he'll work less and travel more!) and even then, barring the world going to hell in a handbasket, we'll both still be making an income from the businesses. Building businesses as well as saving for retirement are a much better ROI than anything the govt would do, and we knew that in our early 30s (at the latest - can't remember NOT knowing it, but we actively were doing something about it by then).
Yes, I’m 46 and I’m building a career that I won’t need to retire from, and I don’t plan to. I’ll continue to do my best with what I have, save where I can, and practice the stoic mindset for the lean times. I’ve lived on little before, and I could do it again.
good luck, bad health can happen in the twinkling of an eye.... we thought the same, but govt doesn't think like you do, they only look for more money, more power, more control. we thought we'd live on what we saved, tour the world, but we're selling things, not going anywhere, because govt inflation, higher taxes, hogher fees for those supposedly "free" services, & inability to help Americans has eaten up our savings. we've been very conservative, but govt happened, & then bad health struck, & we can no longer work. govt will find a way to beat you out of every dime you have saved.
There is no need to defend yourself for getting something you paid for. The kitty is wrong. Kick the kitty into the corner and beat it with a rolled-up fake news paper.
but they didn't pay for it.
people paid for about 1/3 of it and are extracting the rest from current taxpayers.
it was a ponzi scheme in which future generations were forced to participate.
Agree its a Ponzi scheme, but some people paid through the nose for it over and over if they were self-employed. I owned a business and had over 100 employees and paid FICA tax for decades on their behalf (since half of SS/Medicare is paid by employee and half by employer). I lost track of how many hundreds of thousands of dollars I personally shelled out on FICA for employees, and now the joke is that none of it's there. Ironically my partners and I knew SS was a scam so we fully funded a 401K for all employees so at least they have that now (way more $ than social security). Too bad SS wasn't set up to mandate employers to fund 401K plans instead of flushing it down the drain in DC. But of course the point all along was to accumulate power and money in DC for politicians to use to buy votes and divide people. Mission accomplished.
Just so you know, this post got me curious enough to go look how much I've spent on FICA over the last 25 years.
I can't sleep!
Painful...thanks!...:))
Misery loves company : )
Just spit balling here, but is there any analysis of what SS would look like if all the people who didn’t pay into the system (40 quarters) but still getting benefits were taken off the rolls? That was never the design of the original system. Like a lot of good things the original is never enough, we can make it better.
Yes. Like people on disability all their life or a majority of it. Take those numbers out and I would be interested to see the results. It’s more nuanced than everyone retires at 65 and starts collecting social security.
They were told they paid for it. Regardless, they had no choice anyway, they were forced to "invest." The average Joe doesn't know a Ponzi scheme from The Fonz. Portraying him as some sort of fool for not seeing SS for what it was isn't fruitful.
The overall sentiment, right or wrong is, - to quote from The Goodfellas,
"F*ck You! Pay Me!"
no, people told themselves they paid for it.
No we were told and not given a choice
Literally every piece of official SS info clearly says the money is not yours once it goes in the system and you can't expect it back?
I try to tell my 80-year-old mother this, but it just ends up in an argument. She stopped working when I was born in 1971. She and my dad got two checks until he died at 74 in 2008 (he'd retired about 9 years earlier). Since then, she's gotten only his check (over $2k a month). She doesn't even call it social security. She calls it her paycheck. And she really thinks that because she and my father paid into it, she deserves it. I've showed her the numbers and how she got everything they paid in years and years ago and it doesn't matter. They paid in and they were promised and that's how it goes. And she's a conservative Republican too.
Exactly how insurance works, too.
If I got to keep the dollars they took out of my paycheck for four decades who knows what it may have been an investment towards - like a house - that also would be worth alot more now. You arent doing both sides of the equation.
Instead the government spent my earned money on others- probably on wars but also on social services that likely benefited many children that are of age now.
In addition to my reduced paycheck, I responsibly paid for over priced private health insurance year after year - never having benefits, never seeing doctors, never in a hospital. I was young and healthy.
No younger generation is being robbed in some way that I as a boomer was not robbed. Put the blame where it belongs and stop sowing seeds of generational division. It is only a Ponzi schem because the government is CORRUPT.
How is this article divisive? It’s a gun bunch of facts.
Perhaps you posted this question to me earlier in the thread but now reading all these responses clearly the article provoked divisiveness. I was responding to this early comment by the I author (I think) : "but they didn't pay for it.people paid for about 1/3 of it and are extracting the rest from current taxpayers." I am one of the "they" being accused of not paying for "it." I didnt ask the government to reduce my paycheck or to be in cahoots with Big Med extracting hundreds of dollars from me for decades for a product I didnt use. I could have invested that money specically towards savings for my later years. In the 1980s, for example, CDs were at 14%. That is a fact.
Those are all facts. The key one being you didn’t pay for it. Just as I am not paying for mine. That isn’t divisive. It just is.
Ok, you’ve labeled it. So have a million other people including Senator John McCain. That doesn’t change anything. Your solution is to cut off the boomers because they paid too little and live too long. It’s not the boomers fault. FDR and his brain trust created the ponzi long before the first boomer arrived. I ran my numbers a decade ago and had those geniuses in DC put the FICA “contributions” instead in 10 year treasuries and reinvested (power of compound interest), at retirement the value could have been rolled into a lifetime annuity that paid more than the expected SS benefits. But then I wouldn’t have paid enough of the skim and the sharing piece of all the early ponzi members and other eligible beneficiaries. How many bad decisions do we sustain and pay for over a hundred years (income tax, Fed Reserve, etc)? Yes, it’s not going away anytime soon.
That’s a horrible argument for screwing people. I already wrote a long reply so I won’t repeat what I said. But you are incorrect about 200 ways.
Now do one on how much the bailouts of the last 20 years is going to cost us............
Or is that off limits?
I kinda think you cherry picked the dates to gather your data from. Why stop at 2018 for median income? Probably because you noticed to median increased by about 25% between 2018 and 2022. Additionally why use median instead of average? The point is that you used the numbers to best illustrate the conclusion you wanted to draw.I'm not trying to say SSA is not a ponzi scheme but I prefer a more honest comparison.
That may be true but inflation is off the charts, and the economy is fucked. Best to use numbers that are before shit hit the fan, and pray we return to something similar to normal eventually. Anything after 2020 is basically made up or so atypical it is best not to touch until more time passes.
You are wrong a out this.
The kitty is wrong. Dead wrong. My wife does not like dead wrong kitties. Kitty wants to ignore inflation and focus on nominal dollars. Kitty also ignores the disability issue. Bad Kitty. .
First, the solution is simple. Temporarily Eliminate the cap on the withholding tax.
Second. Divorce Disability from SS. Force those who want disability coverage going forward to pay for it.
Third, reform the current disability scam (before you start taking away peoples SS money)
Once these things are done then a permanent solution can be worked on and worked out.
My wife and I are both 68. We both began working at age 12. You could do that back in the 60s. We both paid in to SS for 53 years. Took SS at 62 while still working part time as we have zero trust in the govt.
I look at it like my gun. You can pry it out of my cold dead hands. It needs to be fixed. But not on the backs of people who paid in for 5-6 decades and may have arranged their affairs accordingly.
The kitties calculations are also quite suspect and rely on far too many assumptions and ignore inflation. I was taxed the max every year from 1981-2010, 29 years. I know how much I paid in. I took it early. My break even, in nominal terms, is 17 years 7 months. Call it 18. If I’m alive I’ll be 85, 2 years past my life expectancy. In real terms, adjusted for inflation, I’d need to live to about 150 to get my money back.
Here is the reality. SS recipients have been badly screwed since 1987 when Greenspan conspired with Reagan to change how inflation was measured by BLS…with the goal of reducing future COLA payments. Greenspan projected a savings of 150 billion over 10 years and multiples of that going forward. So the most financially vulnerable segment of our society has purposefully been screwed out of billions of dollars of income over the last 45 years by the govt. No surprise.
I still have the original copy of the pamphlet my grandfather got at work in November 1936, prior to the tax going into effect in 1937. The original tax amount was 1%.
SS tax and funding was never intended to fund a disability program. Most of that program is a scam, that statement is based on firsthand personal knowledge from being directly involved. But when Disability became a part of SS in 1956-60 the funding scheme didn’t change. In 1960, when Disability (for all ages) was added, within one year more than half a million people were on Disability.
Want to fix SS? Start with the disability scam. And leave my SS alone.
I'd be more impressed if you took that gun and pointed it at random young people and took their money directly, instead of subcontracting the violence to the same organization that pointed a gun at you and made you pay in. You were robbed and now you want others to be robbed to make up for it.
Got it.
So you are asking my generation to suffer so you don’t have to? Got it.
You obviously are not one to (1) grasp a solution when it’s presented or (2) pay attention to the actual reality and the facts about that reality.
Was I robbed? Absolutely. Would I like to see future generations not get robbed? Absolutely. I could have made that clear.
Kitty gets most of it wrong. Hence the ‘solution’ he proposes is DOA. His argument looks good, but only because he makes it using nominal values. Using inflation adjusted values he can’t make it work. Which is why he wants you to focus on nominal. He’s wrong, but not stupid.
SS is a problem. But the solution involves more than just SS. If you look at the actual historical record, it began going off the rails about the time Disability was added in. That’s not even a Ponzi. It’s 95% outright fraud. It’s an industry. SS cannot be addressed until the Disability issue is addressed. Kitty doesn’t even bring it up. Which means both you and the cat have no actual idea what you are talking about.
There. I fixed it for you.
I'm asking your generation to face the truth. Glad to see you admit you were robbed. I've been robbed of hundreds of thousands that has been paid out to prior generations (oh, and .EGM really ought to aim his ire at the Silents, who never paid dime 1 for Medicare before 1966 and paid 3% of wages for SS for much of their lives. That generation used the Boomers as milch cows and will wind up paying no net taxes to the Feds, having received a massive subsidy. Early Boomers too. After 1957/8, most Boomers are screwed). I've accepted that loss and wish only that it not be foisted on the young. YMMV.
As to sparing me, most of my income comes from sources that don't pay social security taxes. Interest, dividends, capital gains, pension funded from the earnings of my corporation: not a dime of SS tax paid on any of them (tho they do now charge Medicare if I earn enough). You could have done the same but didn't. Why not?
I suspect that the crackup will leave us with no money for any of this stuff, and soon. You'll get all your promised dollars, defaulted in value thanks to the Chained CPI that Trump pushed through in 2017. In your situation, I'd buy a rental property whose P&I payment is equal to your SS payments now, and then live on the rent while paying the P&I with your SS payment. It's your only easy way to avoid the inflation they intend to take back your dollars with.
Peace.
Nice note, thank you for the info and perspective. I agree with all of it. I also greatly appreciate (and admit to ‘misunderestimating’ you) your ability to (1) add the SG to the issue and (2) understand the nuance of early Boomers vs late Boomers. And yeah, we’ve all been robbed on multiple fronts. I began my anti govt rants at age 12 when I got my first paycheck (1.65 per hour) and taxes were withheld. And a big chunk of my legal career was spent arguing with govt lawyers. I’m no fan. Of lawyers or the govt.
I put the ‘your screwed’ years at 55/56. Self serving perhaps as I was born in 55. But at the big company where I labored for 25 years, I watched all the early Boomers retire with full benefits and a pension after 25 years of service. But by the time I got to 25 years, all that had changed. I left with no pension and no benefits. My paralegal was 1.5 years younger than me with a couple years more service. When she left with 25 years and took a lump sum she got 1.1 million plus benefits. That was in 1999. When I bailed 2 years later (and I made a lot more money than her) all the formulas had changed. I got 200k and a clock. Great clock I will admit. A group of us sued, got our class certified, but eventually lost the lawsuit.
Lastly, I think you will appreciate this. We bailed out completely in 2011. I stopped working in 2008. We sold our house (at a loss) and moved onto our 35 ft sailboat. We still live on the boat today. Our expenses are low, we keep our income below the FED tax level, we have FL domicile (even though we don’t live there) so no state tax. No property tax. No electric, gas, or water bill. Up until 2018 we didn’t own a car. And we’ve been stacking metals since 2002. We also have something most people don’t, full mobility. If we don’t like the anchorage, marina, state, or country we are in we just move and our home goes with us. So we likely in better shape than most in that regard. We have no idea what we will do once we are too old to do ‘this’. Hopefully that’s at least a decade away.
Again I'm not blaming you....but I'm genX and I paid for 35 years.
Is there any difference once you've paid enough to max out the fake benefit?
Make no mistake; it is fake for those in genX...but probably not for boomers according to actuary tables.
That is awesome & something I will pass on to kids in my family 😃
Not everyone planned ‘financially’ as well as you have.
My point wasn't really about how I planned...over the last several decades I have had a number of major setbacks (as everyone does). My point was really about the fact that I never really believed the government was going to 'save' me. It has been my experience throughout my life that no matter how badly I screwed up, nobody is coming to save me. Whether I liked it or not (and I did not!) that turned out to be good information to have. Or as Ron White might put it...That was a handy bit of information to have. :)
I was never taught about financial planning. My parents were a little older when they had me. All I was taught was to get a job with a company, work hard, retired in 40 years, and get you social security and whatever pension the company offered.
I did the same - ignored SS taxes and funded my 401k per max allowed. Less of a lifestyle during the savings years but far bigger nest egg to retire on.
Had I been allowed to save and invest my FICA taxes + employers portion too, I could have retired easily at 60...
we tried as well,but now that we've been retired a few years & bidenomics is eating oit savings up rapidly. you'll need much much more than you thought. my parents only got around $600 a month in ss. they had very reasonable dr bills, & no Medicare. they lived well because they had a paid off home & almost non-existent property taxes. we, too, own our home outright, but the yearly taxes we pay now is higher than we paid in yearly payments when our home was new. every few years, we oay in taxes tye amount of the original cost of our home. we buy it from govt over again every few years.
Our property taxes went up by $1100 this year, and these increases hurt seniors who are trying to live on fixed incomes the most. Long story - botched reassessments by the county - bottom line - this is what happens when one party is the de facto ruler for 40 years and is massively corrupt. But seniors vote and SS is the 3rd rail - no one dares touch it from either party. Interesting to see how those seniors vote when this current county government is up for re-election. I am late 50s, and don't plan to retire until I have to, self employed so I have the option of working less. We told our kids from the time they were in elementary to NOT plan on social security. One listened and is maxing 401K, the other likes to spend....
been looking into doing away with SS ( no not hitlers) but there is little way around it is there? The systems that are not SS ask even more. I checked several. If anyone finds a cheaper solution that works please post it. There were a few in Dr Hubers substack a few days ago
The problem is the money system itself. Boomers, the concern probably isn’t whether you’re getting your SS payments or not. I suspect you will. The question is how much you’ll be able to buy with the paper. COLA won’t matter because the methodology is gamed to keep the adjustments lower than they should be. We can already see the gaslighting attempts from the academic economists:
https://faybomb.substack.com/p/let-them-eat-cars
My non-financial recommendation is repair any feuds you have with friends and loved ones. It’s in all of our interests to strengthen our relationships and our communities. These state Ponzi programs are all falling apart. They are and always have been unsustainable scams. Absolutely nothing is guaranteed, nobody owes us anything, and there is no political figure coming to save us. We’re all we’ve got at this point. Just my two.
Ah, gato, why do I have this nagging feeling now in the back of my mind that you're just another elitist trying to turn us against each other...in this case, young against old? Look, some of us never made big money, okay?...because we were raising families, or didn't go to university, or weren't brilliant entrepreneurs, or we were just regular working shmos. I put 8% of my salary per year, while I was working full-time, into my 401k. It won't be nearly enough to fund the rest of my life, hoping I live long. Yup, I'm one of those horrible people who will actually *need* my SSA "entitlement"....the one I started paying into at age 15, that my husband, as a self-employed person, had the privilege of paying into *double*, that we had no choice but to do so. I voted for politicians back in the day who wanted to privatize SS, to no avail. Believe me, I'd rather have my compound interest. That being said, I also live *very* modestly, and will likely be saving some of my small SSA income once I start receiving it.
Anyway, how is your current diatribe of haves vs. have-nots any better than Joe Biden's disgusting "We're losing patience with you dirty unvaxxed vermin" (to paraphrase) speech of 2021? It's not.
It's hard right, somebody is going to get screwed. It will fall on genX. ALL OF IT.
Not your fault,but still painful for those who have paid into it for 35 years.
The sad thing is the vast majority of folks in my generation have made no plans otherwise.
See above, Ryan. My kind of older parents were never taught to plan financially and they never taught me. It was just work for one company for 40 years like my dad and grandmother did and then live off social security and whatever pension the company may have offered. I didn't know about any of this stuff until well into adulthood.
Yeah. I hear you, for sure.
Similar story. My dad worked for union pacific for 38 years. Got a pension and sits in his lazy boy sun-up to sundown and probably would never get it. I can't blame him.
I didn't figure it out until early 40's. It's amazing what a person can "figure out" when they have to.
Irrespective I doubt there's many who have "figured" out much....as evidence by c19.
I just think it's going to take tough times for people to wake up.
We're the same age btw. I was born in 71' as well. No wonder I like your comments...lol!
Ha! Every time I see yours, I'm like, I feel like I grew up with this guy, haha.
Where did you grow up?
In Southern Maryland. About 19 miles south of DC. I'm still there. :,(
The elites have demonstrated that they have plenty of issues at their disposal to turn people against each other, but I don't think SS and Medicare are two of them. People who have planned their lives around those benefits will be in for tragic disappointment when the house of cards comes down (when they are at their most vulnerable).
If Gato's analysis is wrong, you might have a point. If Gato's analysis is right, then you are blaming him for a problem that was baked into this Ponzi scheme (Thereby killing the messenger). If we acknowledge the problem now, we can at least entertain transitioning away from a scheme that will only create exponentially greater damage over time. The "Transition" will be brutally painful, but how can we in good conscience insist that future generations bear the brunt of this (And I am not sure we will escape it)?
Gato's fiscal analysis is undoubtedly correct; what I quibble with is his assumption that we the people should've not only known 60 years ago that our leaders were liars and cheats, but also should have risen up and wrested control of the SSA from them to take back our money and redesign the entire system. At this point, there will almost certainly be no "transition." It will be more of an abrupt and cataclysmic train wreck....and all the cash in the world won't make much of a difference in one's chances of survival. What *may* make a difference is being well-situated geographically, having access to fresh water, and possessing the physical skills, tools, and knowledge to provide at least minimally for oneself. Good luck with that.
I started this security plan right after I lost my job for not taking the experiment. Pay off all debt, earn just enough keeping tax minimal/nil, learn all skills to be self reliant (solar, cultivation, butchering, handtools, survival techniques etc) move to a remote area with access to fresh water year round. Enjoy the easy, stress free llife while waiting for the train wreck. It's Very good advice LP.
ok, but how well did sitting back saying nothing work
Saying nothing? That's why we *voted*...that's how government was supposed to work, back in the day. I suppose it worked about as well as GenX's valiant efforts to rise up and stop the vaxxocide that was foist upon us in 2021...oh wait, that didn't work so well, either. GenX should hope that whoever's left 50 years from now doesn't personally blame them for the sh*tshow of the last 4 years.
And my snark is not directed at you, Sim.Comm. In fact, this whole discussion saddens me...because once again, we have people who are sure that they "know better" than us rubes, trying to decide who should get basic Constitutional rights (like voting).
So we WERE fighting to change the system? Or did we vote to further the system?
Obviously I blame government, but it doesn't change the fact people got screwed paying for others.
The solution is not continuing to steal....
Personally? I voted for privatization long ago. And I agree, the solution is not to continue the same failed system. But I think there's little chance of re-designing the system, at this point. Change...in the form of collapse...will likely be foist upon us all, and my guess is none of us will be happy about it.
Amen
You weren't there were you? Things happen in life that are not planned. All you wonderful pre planned people that are assuming
]
you will have those careers in the future I wish good luck to. Life doesn't work that way always. You have to depend on THE LORD GOD to provide. HE provides in various ways. But you can't nor shouldn't look down on people that did not have your blessings. Be grateful for them and realize where they came from.
I was "there" for the country ripping bush a new one for even floating the idea.
There's a reason they call SS the third rail.
The anger and anxiety over learning that mistakes in the past could lead to catastrophe in our present could lead one to find a dumping site for those bad feelings, ergo, the need to find fault with people from the past "who should have known better." Fact is they didn't know better, and when people started to raise concerns, people they thought they could trust lied to them early and often.
People became accustomed to thinking that voting for political representatives unburdened them of having to learn about what their representatives were actually doing and how it would impact them. Politicians tell us what we want to hear so we vote for them and then we go back to living our lives while paying no attention to them. SS and Medicare are what happen when people pay no attention over generations.
People 60 years ago should have known better.
Bastiat was writing about how 'legal plunder' as he describes it, destroys civilizations nearly a century before the new deal era.
People contemporary to the passage of SS knew it was doomed to failure and spoke out against it.
Truth be told SS has failed multiple times since its inception hence the necessity to continually increase the percentage of the levy. That alone is first hand evidence of its insolubility.
Thank you so much. Beautifully stated
So you believe you have the right to exist on the backs of the future? Youre actually disgusting if thats true. Take the honorable route...
Nasty little snot aren't you. Look where you have gotten everyone
I will not sit idly by watching the old enslave the young.
Have you started a cooperative employment company and paid people with Subchapter T dividends? That would do a lot more.
The leviathan can and will take everything. Corporate structure is irrelevant when the beast begins to starve.
Why not just give up now and spare yourself the strife?
😂😂
Its true of anyone who supports this ponzi scheme. Own it.
God bless you for this post! Well said.
When I was 60 I received a letter from the SS detailing what I had paid in over 40 years and what I was eligible to take out beginning in 7 years. By my calculation I would get back in nominal dollars what I paid in if I lived to 104, sans interest, of course. Note: I have been self employed these 40 years and, as such, have paid both employer and employee share of FICA (15.3%).
I know that, even if I survive to 104, that this is the worst investment I have ever made, and would happily take today 1/2 of what I have already paid in a lump sum in exchange for opting out of the system going forward. The government will likely means test me out of my benefits anyway when the fiscal reality becomes an exigency.
Your point made concerning rates of return in the private sector is excellent. If the American worker knew how much wealthier they would be if they had been paid the full value of their labor, then invested the part confiscated by the government, there would be an instantaneous revolutionary impetus.
The SS program has been the biggest wealth destroyer in history and now it is just a matter, for most people, of getting their share of the rotting carcass before there is nothing left. Anyone in Washington that has ever seen the budget knows this, yet they are too craven to do anything about it.
We are doomed if there is not an awakening. The realities of the fisc cannot be neglected forever.
Perfectly stated, Pelopidas!
Thank you, JudyC.
Not all ‘investment strategies’ are secure and insure one that the funds will be available when one needs them. Look at what happened to people’s ‘private investments and 401K plans’ in the financial ‘crash’ of 2008-2009? Better to invest in a “load” or two with an ‘investment group’ south of the border! 😉🤨
When looking at actual numbers, the “security” part of social security still does not make mathematical sense. If you look at my example where I would receive back the exact amount I paid when reaching 104 years of age after drawing payments for 37 years. I started paying into the system 84 years earlier. And this only accounts for what I had paid in until age 60 (no payments into the system after that). So, in effect, if I kept my money and simply put it into a pillow case at 0% return, I would have all my future receipts from social security in a lump sum at age 60, 44 years earlier than system will have returned them to me. The 0% scenario is, of course, idiotically pessimistic, but even on those terrible terms social security is far worse.
Thank you for your input.
You fail to account for the comeback it’s made since. The approximately 14,000 on the big board when the crash started is now at 34,000. That is damn better than whatever you’re proposing,
It's not only a ponzi scheme; it's a bidding war with an ever expanding "menu".
In 1945, The SSA had 42 workers who supported each individual retiree, while today only 3.3 workers support each retiree.
It's broke, in both senses of the word.
Let's face it no reform can cut deep enough to fix it.
At 52 I have made alternative plans. It would be foolhardy to believe it will exist when I'm eligible.
Narrator: Little did Ryan and his friends know, they weren’t supposed to live that long.
Shoot, I didn't think I would make it to see 30. My 20's could've convinced anyone who was sane, that that was a reasonable conclusion.
Good thing I met my wife...phew it was a close call...:)
There were larger plans for you
Yeah I think the last 3 years were merely the "prequel" of pain...
In fairness, the Plandemic is on 4 years now
And yes, these were just the appetizers - a compliance test
So that's what that COVID thing was all about?
Not to worry!
The B-21 will be paid for and maybe 20% of them will be safe to fly on any given day.
Trillions for fancy weapons, not one cent for responsible management!
sleep well tonight uncle is running 800 little operations around the world to keep B-21 profits safe.
They'll "fix" that with a war against China...
Here kitty, kitty. Come closer so I can slap you! Social Security IS NOT an entitlement! I paid into SS my entire working life to get back a small amount of what I paid in and I planned my savings and investments on the assumption it wouldn't be available by the time I was old enough to collect.
Welfare is an entitlement. Giving money and benefits to criminals who illegally cross our borders is an entitlement. Reparations for nonexistent harms is an entitlement. Corporate welfare is an entitlement. SS if anything is a loss, but I'll take what I can get because it is mine and I earned it! The same is true of medicare which I also have to currently pay for. Tough titties, kitty, if you don't like it.
as you'd see if you read the math, that's simply false on a systemic level.
what was paid in does not even come close to covering what is being taken out.
"i paid $100, so i get to take out $350" is not "paying your way." it's gouging the next guy.
UncleWiggly does have a point. Most of his last paragraph is 100% correct. As to the loss, it depends on his personal variations in time and returns. I can say that it was a mandated deduction from his income, he has every right to expect a return, whether that return has increased from the contributions is also debatable, but he should get back at least what he's put in.
I can say that I too am not dependent on SS, now or in the future. I can say that from my experience, working 35 years in a middle income job, making my mandatory contributions to SS and Medicare, my numbers are higher than what you projected in your estimates. I began making detailed records of income and expenses about halfway through my career. So, in the last 18 years, of those 35 years, my contributions were $120K, and the employers match was another $120K. Making the assumption that the first 17 years was about half that, the account should be around $360K. I doubt I will see that much between 65 and 78, or even longer should that be the case.
Ponzi scheme? Yes 100%. Reason to blame a generation? Not in the least. Is the government's malfeasance a reason to steal more money from a generation? Also no.
Yeah we accept bad debt on our personal balance sheet as a sacrifice so some in prior generations feel they're entitled to saying:
Tough luck; thanks for helping us monetize your bad debt.
I don't care about the math anymore than congress does everytime they modify SS or put through a spending bill. I want what I was forced to pay for.
The money is gone. Spent on older folks before you. Poof. Time to grow up and stop believing lies. You'll be better for it.
Do you also want your Maypo?
Had I that $100 in 1980 when interest rates on CDs were 14% whoa how much would that be now. You are so good at math.
Anyone with even a modicum of intelligence has known for the last 40 years that SS is a promise being made with no honest consideration given as to how it will be kept.
You yourself admit to planning with this very expectation in mind.
The money ain't there, and the only possible way to actually get the money is to continue to victimize your children and grand children to an even greater extent than you were.
You cannot right the wrongs of the past by wronging those in the future.
"I was robbed. Justice demands that a Leviathan rob someone else to make me whole."
Actually, SS isn't thine. It was capital ripped from a working generation that is much poorer than your retired generation is. Also, that working generation reflects the demographics of today, while your generation looks like America 65 years ago: 90% white. Don't expect a majority minority working group to pay out 15% of their wages to support a bunch of old white folks much longer.
Whiney racist.
I get called that a lot as a majority European-ancestry person in the USA.
You're right; keep your head firmly where it is now. I'm sure poor black and
Hispanic kids are just itching to pay for richer old whiteys they don't know and don't care about and aren't related to.
May you live long.
Gato - you worry too much. The fix is in.
The eldercide took place with time bomb jabs and ventilators.
They fixed the FICA Glitch
So you're saying we have a chance?.....:)
Iatragenocide
Genocide by every name is similarly awful.
Yes siree they did...see my post below.
This is why I switched from "conservative" in my naïve youth to anarchro-capitalist many years ago (i.e. fringe libertarian), and why our founding fathers assumed we'd need to have a little revolution every 2-3 generations if we were to remain free.
Even the most idealized state - that which starts with noble intentions to carry out its selfless charter - becomes "self-interested" in time; an organism unto itself with a survival instinct. It inevitably usurps more and more power in that interest, thus attracting the charlatan, parasite class to benefit from our diminishing individual freedoms and autonomy.
This can be seen in all facets of life touched by government. Before long, you have what El Gato has so eloquently laid out for us in these last two posts. It is always this way. Government "programs" exist for the ultimate benefit of the state, not for the people it supposedly serves. Ponzi schemes abound.
Never forget that power corrupts even the most "benevolent king" and as that power coalesces, the corruption and rot spread to all that benefit from its ill begotten riches.
We will continue the descent towards bondage until we get fed up somewhere down the road and throw off the yoke of absolutism. Thus, the cycle begins anew.
Green energy incentives are excellent examples of the government, i.e. politicians, benefiting from their “programs.”
Precisely!
The best form of government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by the occasional assassination. VOLTAIRE
AWESOME observation. I like that one! Thanks.
Yeah, gato malo, post-boomer hindsight is 20-20. Those of us who lived through the ponzi scheme had no choice but to participate. Other generations have to be tutored by you (thanks!) to see the math!
You definitely get part of it: making other provisions for retirement when the feds are draining your paycheck for their programs is challenging. There were lots of other scams going on for someone born in 1954, too: wars, gas shortages, basic rights and wealth grabs on a regular financial crisis/ bubble-bursting basis. And once a person retires, one often pays MORE for Medicare health premiums than one did to private insurers before retirement. Not to mention that Medicare is first and foremost a rationing system with massive surveillance capabilities. We don’t get to opt-out of Medicare at any point, but we probably should not use it if we can pay direct and protect our privacy. Not using it could save you from federally-mandated hospital protocols and other pharmacological harms. This is the decision-point some of us are at now. May it serve as a tiny dot of illumination for younger generations.
The problem arises when many people are living paycheck to paycheck with nothing left over to make alternative plans. I may not be one of those, but I’ve certainly worked with many in that situation. Those of us who were fortunate to make other plans, I suspect, are in a minority, especially in today’s Biden economy!
I agree...I wish I could ‘opt out’ of the mandatory payment for Medicare that is taken out every month from one’s SS.
I rarely had any regular ‘health insurance’ over the course of my adult working life. I made do without and I never went to the doctor. (And was not sick.) If I did I participate in the ‘sysytem’, it was at a low cost community healthcare center, that was an income based system and charged according to one’s income. Now that I have Medicare ‘health insurance’ I don’t even want to avail myself to use it, because I am seriously ‘down’ on the Industrial Medical Healthcare Delivery System.
You can. Move to Italy and stop paying. When I worked the numbers years ago, the mandatory participation in the Italian health system was less than the required SS parts B and D. And the drugs and doctor visits were lower priced.
You won't be covered by Medicare, but it's screwed.
Italian healthcare is decent.
I’ve been through it.
Hospitals not great though.
Clinic and first aid pretty competent. YMMV
Also, depending where you are you better speak Italian pretty well. I’ve done a fair bit of interpreting.
Thanks for the personal perspective.
I expect that the heroic measures that both benefit and curse us here in the USA are far less prevalent there. I do need to work on my Italian before moving.
Big cities are overrun.
You may be fine in the countryside if you have some cash flow.
Want isolation? Sardinia.
Can go way North and the immigrants are more Northern Europeans.
Food is safER in Italy than in the US
How did you get the US government to stop taking the Medicare $$ out of one’s SSI
monthly payment?
I haven't yet made the move but I researched it beforehand. Medicare Part A comes for free. You have to pay for parts B and D, and you have to request that they do so. My guess is there's a process to ask them to stop, but better never to start. It's an issue for a few years down the road.
My spouse has kept her company insurance and so does not pay part B or part D.
Yes re the system. Not having perfect health, I am just navigating the morass of trying to get out it. Basically, you have to keep Part A, which kicks in for hospital coverage, and file an affidavit with Medicare to drop Part B ( doctor visits). Part D is Rxs, which I think would also terminate. If one drops Medicare B, I don’t think you can keep supplemental private insurance, so you are going all direct pay. Medicare has the effect of stripping you of the choice to pay for private insurance. Of course, we could move to Italy which has big problems collecting taxes and is not popular with the EU bankers.
"Those of us who lived through the ponzi scheme had no choice but to participate."
Uh, sure you did. If you were incorporated you could have paid out your entire wage as pension contributions, deducted from corporate income before any tax was applied to them. Takes a bit of work but you could have avoided paying anything to SS. You just didn't hate it enough.
You left out the part where the $$ that we do receive from SS (that we paid into) is also being taxed, in my case at 28%. So it goes right back into the politicians...er, I mean the government’s coffers. And in the case of widowed people, you can only collect either your, or your late spouse’s benefit, not both, even though both were partners paid in (assuming both spouses were employed, which is a pretty safe assumption in there economic times.) There are all manner of ways that the government has (and has always had) of screwing the average citizen out of their money).
You’re right! SS is a lot like IRAs and 401Ks where you get hit with big taxes if you have an emergency and need to withdraw. Medicare is thought of by some as an entitlement rather than a self-funded program. I think there are many people who don’t realize how much the Medicare premiums are, either. A problem I have had is finding a direct pay doctor who has opted out of Medicare. They are scarce, and mostly near big cities.
I assume you too survivors benefits until age 70, then switched to your own? If not, sue your financial advisor.
Thank you, I should be OK when I retire next year but if I’m not, I’m at least healthy enough to pick up work or start my own business. I’d rather not, but at least it’s an option.
Not at all. I waited until my full retirement age to collect (66 years, 2 months) so I didn’t have to worry about how much money I earn, as I’m still working. And since my income was higher than my late husband’s, I didn’t take his benefits. So all the money he paid in to SS from the age of 18 until he passed away at 54 is gone for good. Except for the $255 that everyone receives, presumably to pay for a grave marker 🙄.
Ah, excuse my sexism. I had a 2/3rds probability that you earned less than your husband. Go with the odds.
I've had two male friends whose wives pre-deceased them who were surprised and delighted to find out they could draw on survivor benefits at age 60, or draw their spouse's benefit at full retirement age and wait on their own until age 70, switching then to the higher benefit. For one it was a pleasant reminder of a dearly departed spouse, and for the other it was repayment of the $500,000 his wife had cost the family in a contentious divorce.
I guess the differential in payments was high enough that taking your husband's payment at 66/2 and letting your own build until 70 was a money-losing proposition. I ran the payback numbers for a friend who would have to have waited until 2036 before increased payments from retiring later made up for lost benefits. Of course, Social Security is projected to have to cut benefits 25% in 2034 if nothing changes, so taking up front now seems the wiser choice. I told him, as he is still working, to take the money and set it aside and use the interest it throws off to supplement future benefits when he needs it.
Hoping you're blessed enough not to need the payment for a long time.
And we continue to re-elect members of congress who’s have been instrumental in the overspending. Screw everything else, vote fiscal conservatives
Start electing businessmen for Congress and lawyers for the judicial branch only!
The only non lawyer business man we had was Trump and they want him gone
Just print the money. It’ll be fine.
Trump's tax bill chained the already warped CPI to chained CPI which will further understate inflation. That seems to be one plan.
😂😂 isn’t that what they’re doing now?
I have known it was a ponzi scheme since my first job in High School, and through my whole working career, where I also interacted with many who were destitute living on meager SS and disability checks. Just enough to stay alive to feed the matrix system with a little more tax juice ... The crime was that unless one was self-employed there were scant few jobs that did not mandate (familiar word these days) FICA "contributions".
The story line isn't one of blaming a generation (I don't think), the real plot is the fallacy of gov't welfare programs that are only designed to gain votes. I am of the belief that EVERY gov't program fits this paradigm, or at least I cannot think of one that doesn't. The worst is yet to come when this socialized medical system crashes under the fouled theatrical promises of delusional criminals (politicians used as human meat puppets for the pharmaceutical and insurance billionaires).
You must mean the “subsidized medical insurance system”. The Industrial Medical Healthcare Delivery System in the U.S.A. is ALL about the $$$...it’s not a System that is ‘socialized’ in any way. If one has ‘better insurance’, one’s supposedly gets better care, and can see any physician or healthcare provider that “takes their insurance”!
I see your point, and somewhat agree on the difference between socialized and subsidized. But, without the mandate to have "insurance", the mandate to pay into the subsidy programs, and most importantly the mandate to the vast majority of medical providers to adhere to and accept what the "insurance" conglomerates mandate as an acceptable fee, we are back to the socialization (or maybe more properly the fascistic) model (government mandates goods and services, following the needs of the industry it pretends to regulate, funded by mandatory revenues from the populace).
I agree it is all about the money, that is taken from the average citizen to line the pockets of politicians, their lobbyist fluffers and the industry whales making sure there's always 10% for some "big guy".
The largest employer in the country, is the country. The largest industry (health "care") is run by the largest employer in the country. Sounds like garbage to me. Government (anything) is THE problem.
Yes! I forgot about the Obamacare ‘mandate’s, that everyone was required to get some type of health insurance. I never did, and somehow ‘skirted’ around the mandate and coasted into Medicare when I turned 65.
So I see your thinking from the Obamacare POV! The healthcare insurers are the ones that are totally ‘driving’ the Medical Industrial Healthcare Delivery System ‘bus’. As well as the U.S. government with Medicare and Medicaid.
Agree. Well said.
Entitlement: my entitlement to have others pay to provide me with what I don’t provide for myself. The National Insurance Fund was started in 1948 in Britain, supposedly to fund the cradle to the grave welfare state: health, sickness & unemployment benefit and State pension. The Minister responsible for the scheme/scam, remarked: “The great secret about the National Insurance Fund is, there ain’t no fund.” Compulsory National Insurance Contributions (employer and employee) were not hypothecated, but just paid into the Treasury. Well the last laugh was on the Minister responsible, who resigned in protest in 1950 because the NIC wasn’t funding the scam, but being used to rearm the military somewhat depleted after 5 years of war. This was good politics, because the Labour Government had Socialised the economy, nationalising industry and utilities, and health, so the industries involved in rearmament, iron & steel, ship building, coal, aircraft production, weapons, heavy engineering were all State owned and could fulfil the promise of plenty of jobs. This just shifted money from one part of the economy to another but created no wealth and devoured it.
It was realised in the 1950s the pension ‘fund’ was empty and so an additional compulsory contribution was introduced. Then in the 1960s that second ‘fund’ was replaced by another, which was credited with only part of the contributions an individual had previously made. People weren’t happy. The Thatcher Government tried to encourage people to take out private pensions, and part of your contributions to the State scam could be diverted to this. However many companies had their own schemes and you could not opt out of the State scheme for a private scheme if this were the case. By now it was very confused, because workers were more mobile, not staying like before with a company for their whole working life. People then ended up with a number of paid-up small pensions. In the late 90s, the Labour Chancellor changed the tax rules regarding share dividends and pension funds. It constituted a raid on pension funds worth billions to the Exchequer and meant many funds would be making reduced payouts or near bankrupt. This helped cause a pension crisis resulting in women’s retirement age of 60 being increased to 65 in line with men - equality - then pension age increased to 67, and I think the plan is for it to be put up to 70. Another triumph for Socialism and Statism.
Now run a spreadsheet showing how much forever wars cost with interest.
SS is not the problem.
Bullspit spending is.
well,m we currently spend more on SS, medicare, medicaid and other transfer programs + interest on debt than we take in from all taxes combined, so i'm not sure how you get there. we're literally in deficit before we spend a nickel on defense.
this is not to say that we could not save a ton by avoiding stupid wars that win us nothing and cost us much, but even if it went to zero, the "entitlements" would still have us in deficit.
How much of that debt was accumulated for overly large defense expenditures? Federal debt in 1980 was less than the interest we will pay this year. Reagan began piling up debt for a defense buildup. We never got the peace dividend as the neocons encouraged Saddam to invade Kuwait in 1990.
So, add 90% of debt interest to Veteran's costs to the defense budget. It's probably 1.8trillion this year.
The only solution is gutting the entitlements.
How much is fair? a 50% cut? 40% 70%? Means tested so some of the largest lifetime contributors get nada, screwed out of hundreds of thousands in their lifetime?
I was in healthcare for many, many years as an entrepreneur. I can say with certainty that the moment when total cost of a medical service was separated from a consumer decision, the costs spiraled out of control. Combine that with massive provider paperwork and the provider costs also spiraled out of control.
Now a consumer only cares about the deductible, not total cost.
Maybe it's time to start a company that produces cat food that humans can eat. That, or a euthanasia service.
I mean, obviously those Boomers are Useless Eaters.
when you aren't spending your own $ you don't care what something costs.....
THAT is the cheese used to lure the mice into the trap.
in Belgium where I used to live, they said the retirement funds would be empty by the time dad retired. He has retired 30 years ago. The retirement funds are still paying. Probably the same as what we were told with oil as kids - when in school they told us the oil reserves would be empty by 2000. Lots and lots more oil are pumped up and it is now 23 years later and still going strong. I wonder where the oil comes from, just read that it is not from fossilized veggies and that must be the case, otherwise it would be long gone.
the most likely scenario sees govt paying you $X like promised, but $X won't buy you S.
My dad retired at 65, and died at 99. Figure it out ;-)
mine retired early due to closure of plant at 58, now almost 90 :)
Bingo!
The way I see it is this: life is all about taking calculated risks: mine paid off fine, I know of plenty of criminals who ended up in prison for life for the sake of a few thousand quid, and a few who ended up with a life of luxury in Spain - my risks were more ethical, less dramatic, and on average, rather more profitable. Tough titty, innit?