Posted on 01/31/2017 5:57:01 AM PST by Kaslin
To make heads or tails of the Social Security debate requires an understanding about what Social Security truly is. But that understanding is exceedingly difficult to attain, given that both sides of the debate are prone to making misleading, or altogether false, statements about the nature of the program.
Take Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works. She takes the then-incoming Trump administration to task for not having campaigned on the issue of Social Security reform, but because Paul Ryan said after Trump’s election that “with a unified Republican Party, we can get things done,” she immediately turned to her thoughts about how Republicans are dead-set to destroy Social Security, and Democrats are dead-set to save it at all taxpayer costs necessary.
In her mind, you see, Social Security represents “government at its best,” and that it “work(s) fine” with no need of “fixing” or “saving.” This would, of course, be news to any actuary of a soundly administrated insurance company which might look its general account’s looming $32 trillion shortfall in projections, reasonably expected to become practically manifest in 2034.
But in her most recent article on HuffPo, Nancy Altman posits (in the same article, mind you) that Social Security is both “the people’s pension” and a “solution” to “wealth and income inequality.”
So, which is it? Is it a public pension program for individual investors, or is it an entitlement program meant to equalize economic outcomes? I’m consistently told that these are entirely different things.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Since the day I began looking critically at Social Security, it seems like an unsustainable, liberal Ponzi scheme to me.
“Since the day I began looking critically at Social Security, it seems like an unsustainable, liberal Ponzi scheme to me.”
I hear you. I retired at the end of 2016 and will be receiving my first SS check in about a week. I don’t have a great deal of confidence that I’ll even recover what I and my employers have paid into it. We’ll see.
Since the day I began looking critically at Social Security, it seems like an unsustainable, liberal Ponzi scheme to me.
But the truth is that benefits really do need to be slowly rolled back. And the justification is simple: The full benefits age, when SS was first created, was HIGHER than the statistical average lifespan. It is now significantly lower.
i.e. the idea was that if you were unfortunate enough to live beyond your productive years, SS became a sort of soft landing, but the average person never got a dime because they died too early.
Now, most people will collect and MANY will collect for decades. Heck, in my case both my parents are still alive. Barring an accident or annurism, I could collect SS for 20 or 30 years.
Part of the solution is simple. Gradually align it with the average life span statistic. And the benefits, in general, need to be reduced gradually as well. They are already doing that with increases that do not match the loss of value in the dollars the recipients receive.
But it’s really too late. This is one reason I keep stocking up on ammo.
My SS check comes from you, the worker.
You pay into FICA, I get a check
as long as you work.
"They" were able to scare SS recipients because the workforce had diminished and the coffers were indeed emptying.
Trumps' employment plan will put money back into the SS system and ease the fear.
It may NEVER get back to a separate account, but people working paying taxes will fatten the system up and maybe .... maybe .... if can be "corrected"
It is what it is.
I never thought SS would be here when I got here.
Since it is and I am, all you mugs need to keep working so I can continue to get my checks !!!
carry on !
it is a very simple program. Tax todays’s workers and give it to toady’s recipients. Politicians play a great shell game with it by using terms such as “trust fund”, “sacred trust”, “compact”, “earned”, “invested”, and etc. but it does not change the fact that it is just another welfare scheme.
Abortion policy in the US has exacerbated the crumbling of SS. Some 40 million fewer American workers paying into the system. This is the actual reason why the unified support among the elected class to make the 30 million illegals into citizens. The government needs those young illegals paying into the ponzi pot so the system doesn’t detonate under the current watch. Kicking the can down the road is a universally supported DC game.
And what about all of us that are in our 40’s and have paid in all our working lives as well?
Keep in mind, if I still lived in Seattle, I’d have to augment this money by being a greeter at Wal-Mart just to be able to afford a studio apartment.
And what about all of us that are in our 40’s and have paid in all our working lives as well?
Keep in mind, if I still lived in Seattle, I’d have to augment this money by being a greeter at Wal-Mart just to be able to afford a studio apartment.
Also, keep in mind that at this moment, I’ve been paying into it for 20 more years than you have.
With the divorce and setting myself up in a new household it pretty well depleted what was saved.
Fortunately I did buy real estate on 15 year mortgage and acquired precious metals that are in my physical possession. And, honestly, I could always expatriate if I REALLY wanted to stretch my money. But I like KY. :)
Here in AZ the stupid voters voted for a minimum wage increase and now that the first part was phased in we are now seeing a 10%+ increase on prices on everything to pay the employees more. More than some are worth so some will have to be laid off but that’s a different part of the story.
My SS check did not go up 10% so while some people got a $2 an hour raise; those of us living solely on SS have taken a 10% reduction in pay. Thanks for nothing stupid voters.
I started working when I was 15, and I paid into the
Social Security system until I was 65.
I now get a monthly check of $1133——I got a whole
$4 raise per month for this year from Obama-—.3%—while he gave Federal workers a 2.1% raise, which is 7 times what ss recipients got-—.
Meanwhile-—the “REFUGEES” Obama is flooding the country with are getting $1800 per adult for their living costs here in the ISA. Where is that money coming from? What p;art of the “BUDGET” that Obama never gave to Congress?
The current government is working with a ‘Continuing
Resolution’ & I don’t think Obama actually gave a budget to Congress more than 2 times in 8 years.
Here’s the bottom line:
People who never paid a penny into Soc Sec are getting money from the Fed government which Obama set up, and those of us who lived & worked here all of our lives are getting shafted. AND-—OBAMA NEVER VETTED THEM WORTH A DAMN!!! We have no idea who these people really are
!!
Started drawing at 62, almost 15 years ago. Several friends laughed and decided to wait until 67 to maximize their benefits but died shortly before they began receiving their first check. They and their employers had paid into the scheme slightly more than 50 years and those that died have essentially received nothing back on their “investment”.
Would love to see someone audit the Social Security fund.
Started drawing at 62, almost 15 years ago. Several friends laughed and decided to wait until 67 to maximize their benefits but died shortly before they began receiving their first check. They and their employers had paid into the scheme slightly more than 50 years and those that died have essentially received nothing back on their “investment”.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I waited till 68 with first Withholding at 14 (1953) and been drawing for 10 years and hope to draw for another 30 or so. <: <: <:
Would also love to see an HONEST audit and see something done as 20/30/40 somethings drawing because their feelings were hurt by some mean boss or they are too ‘good’ to get a job instead of a position.
Of course today the airwaves are running amok with lawyers ‘guaranteeing’ one getting SSI payments....
Like most everything else, there are some people who actually NEED and ‘earned’ it but ‘they’ have put people on SSI to keep them off Unemployment &/or Welfare.
Like Judge Judy has spouted
‘Back problems? You have had 3 kids since your ‘disability paying back problems’ and Me & Byrd are paying for them also’.....
Back problems? You have had 3 kids since your ‘disability paying back problems’ and Me & Byrd are paying for them also’.....”
Love Judge Judy. Single gal on last week who said she couldn’t work because she sometimes has asthma and she has a new baby to care for. She gets SSI because of the asthma. Judge informed her that caring for any baby, particularly one who did not have a father, was a lot harder than working and being responsible for herself and her asthma didn’t seem to bother her one bit. Audience clapped.
Need more judges outspoken like her, particularly on daytime TV.
I am not completely sure what my wife thinks when I say to her: “We should not count on having any Social Security income when we retire. We have to plan as if we aren’t going to have it.”
My wife generally handles the investment and retirement focus, and I am quite happy with that because I couldn’t find any of that less interesting.
I don’t know if she thinks that it my right wing inner self that says those things, but I honestly believe there will come a day when the government is going to a) Have means testing for Social Security, and b) Appropriate retirement accounts, giving government retirement credits of some kind in return.
I just don’t have any faith in politicians fixing a system that is, in my eyes, fundamentally flawed anyway.
I understand your post completely. Sigh...it is irritating enough to have paid into it and it seems probable (to me, at least) that it isn’t going to survive in its current form, so I don’t feel I am going to get anything out of it.
But I also know there are a lot of people who haven’t saved anything. They have bought houses and cars and gone on vacations they probably should have been more frugal on so they could put some money away, but didn’t...and they are depending on Social Security. That is a little frightening.
What will probably happen is that people who have gone to the effort, and are lucky enough to have had a job long enough to have made enough money to try to put some away, are going to lose their money when it all goes to crap. They will just have MORE worthless money. And we’ll end up in the same boat as people who never saved a cent.
Oh well. Cross that bridge when it presents itself, until then...keep your powder dry!
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