I'm a great-grandpa. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 14. Just give me back the money I put in and some employers contributed along the way, it's a tidy six figure sum. Just the principle. I won't live to see it, and I'm still working.
Now which of you wants to come out here and be responsible for $100,000,000.00 worth of projects a year, spend half or more of your days away from home every year, go days with sometimes three or four hours of sleep, work all hours or be on call, 24/7 until the job is done, away from family and friends, on location? Don't bother making long range plans, because that'll be when things happen. I haven't had a vacation nor a sick day in over 20 years. Benefits come out of pocket, because I'm a consultant.
(And then there are years when activity stops, and you live off your savings and what you can scratch together from odd jobs. Try wintering in North Dakota with no running water, skinning your own dinner, heating/cooking with wood, and using an outhouse.)
There are fewer than 10,000 people on the planet who do what I do for a living. I've paid my dues, adapted to sweeping technological changes, worked the sh*t jobs no one else could do or wanted to do, and I have earned (over more than three decades in this profession) the opportunity to keep doing it only so long as I do it well.
If you can keep up, you might be able to have the job you seem to think I have 'stolen' from you.
“I’m a great-grandpa. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 14. Just give me back the money I put in and some employers contributed along the way, it’s a tidy six figure sum.”
Stop taking it from my pocket and we have a deal.
“Now which of you wants to come out here and be responsible for $100,000,000.00 worth of projects a year, spend half or more of your days away from home every year, go days with sometimes three or four hours of sleep, work all hours or be on call, 24/7 until the job is done, away from family and friends, on location?”
Well, let’s see. I paid for my school by working 4 months out of the year out at a camp, every summer where I lived in a tent. 3 or 4 hours of sleep? Try getting up at 330 am and getting off the job at 9 or 10, eating, going back into your tent and trying to sleep enough, getting up and doing the same thing the next day.
Rain or shine, snow, even.
I’d wager you get paid substantially more than I did.
“I haven’t had a vacation nor a sick day in over 20 years.”
Sounds like heaven. I get slowdowns because they don’t have enough work to keep me going.
“Benefits come out of pocket, because I’m a consultant.”
Same here.
“Try wintering in North Dakota with no running water, skinning your own dinner, heating/cooking with wood, and using an outhouse.”
Sounds like life growing up. :)
“If you can keep up, you might be able to have the job you seem to think I have ‘stolen’ from you.”
I just want a shot, that’s all I ask. I’ve done very well for every employer and client that I’ve ever worked for but none of them have taken me on full time.
There’s so much that I can do, but it gets discouraging when you are relied upon so much as a volunteer, but no one is willing to hire you. I can do the work just fine and I’ve been paying my dues.
Joe I would re-check your math.
If you paid the max for the entire time and are now retired you would recieve the max pay out on SS. At the max pay out, a retiree of seventy years of age has received his entire input PLUS interest and is now lioving on the good will of the younger generations.
It is stricly math. It is based i=on the amount you paid in VS the amount you have taken out since your fiorst check.
Social Security is a massive Ponzi Scheme. It is weighted to the older generations and the bulge in boomers is part of the bankrupting process that was originally designed into the system.
It is was and was always intended to be a giant slush fund for vote buyimng to be used by the Democrat Party. It has been A very successful program for them.