I still object to it being lumped in with the welfare herd. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 14, and I'm a great-grandpa now (still not retired). With the boom/bust cycles in my industry over the decades, the money I paid into Social Security is as much as I have been able to set aside for retirement (and keep there).
I have paid more in income taxes in just the last 5 years than that amount (well over), so count that, too. Somehow, the stigma of "entitlement" doesn't fit. It isn't like I was some illegal who popped up to draw benefits--I've been paying in for half a century.
From a legal standpoint, quesney is correct. There are no private property rights attached to Social Security. But you are correct as far as perception goes. Everyone who worked in the private sector paid in to it. Therefore it isn’t “welfare.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemming_v._Nestor
I still object to it being lumped in with the welfare herd. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 14, and I’m a great-grandpa now (still not retired). With the boom/bust cycles in my industry over the decades, the money I paid into Social Security is as much as I have been able to set aside for retirement (and keep there).
I have paid more in income taxes in just the last 5 years than that amount (well over), so count that, too. Somehow, the stigma of “entitlement” doesn’t fit. It isn’t like I was some illegal who popped up to draw benefits—I’ve been paying in for half a century.[/i]
Please don’t misunderstand me, and I don’t think you do, but just to make sure I’m clear: I’m not talking about what’s right/deserved. I’m talking about reality. The reality is, from a purely financial perspective, there is no “pension fund”. There is no savings safebox where everything you contributed has been held. It’s all been spent.
The money being paid to social security beneficiaries comes out of general tax revenue paid by an ever-shrinking number of ever-poorer, ever-more-burdened (on average) working taxpayers. From a pure, financial-reality perspective, it’s a government benefit and, politically, will be treated as such. The government is using other people’s money to pay your benefits. It’s not drawing on any secured stash of your past contributions - those contributions are all gone.
Government benefits are government spending paid for tax revenue from current taxpayers (and borrowing).
The time to argue about that is long past, after years of government spending more or taxing less and saving less than it should have and never treating your contributions as your property in the first place.
Is it right, no? Is it reality, yes. Is it going to get uglier, absolutely. Brace yourself.
“Somehow, the stigma of “entitlement” doesn’t fit. It isn’t like I was some illegal who popped up to draw benefits—I’ve been paying in for half a century.”
I agree with you.
You were forced to pay into it, as I was.
The problem is that the money you paid was never saved, and people that never paid are getting SS as well.
It is bankrupt.
So it is a touchy subject with the younger set because they know they will not get their money back. Nor do many of those getting it soon that paid in at the max rate. It is extremely socialized, so the only ones that benefit are either ones who never paid in or were low wage earners.
It makes the rest of us mad. As socialism does to any one with a work ethic or sense of fairness.
Smoke it Joe, I am on your side! Social Security is NOT an entitlement. It is a right...You and I each paid for our own Social Security that is coming due now!
I agree with you. However, social security has always been an elaborate Ponzi scheme relying on the “full faith and credit” of the US. Social security was originally intended as a safety net, not as broad as it has now become. If anyone should get it, you should, but it is weak and getting weaker because it is a huge govt obligation being paid on a current basis by a smaller and smaller workforce. And unlike you, most people will not have paid into social security as much as they get out of it and I will either get very little, or spend it for heavily inflated expenses/devalued dollar, or both.