Posted on 08/21/2015 9:42:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Money being paid in by today's workers is going out to pay for more than the number of retired workers. Today it takes three workers for each retiree today; today's worker is getting squeezed even worse than numbers suggest because one-third of payments go out to non-retirees.
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/icp.html
Graphic there shows retired workers receiving benefits is 66.5 percent of total receiving benefits.
Spouses 4.1 percent.
Children 7.3 percent.
Widow(er)s and parents 7.1 percent.
Disabled workers 15 percent.
Money being paid in by today’s workers is going out to pay for more than the number of retired workers. Today it takes three workers for each retiree today; today’s worker is getting squeezed even worse than numbers suggest because one-third of payments go out to non-retirees.
I have no problem with those figures. SS confers benefits on spouses and survivors. My wife never paid into SS, but she gets a benefit thru me.
SS is a product of law. It has been changed and amended by Congress and approved by the President. In 1983 President Reagan and Tip O'Neil changed the law by increasing the age for full benefits from 65 to 67. They also mandated that all new Federal employees would have to join the system. Changes are made all the time.
You are correct. A retiree with a low average indexed monthly earning (AIME) gets 90% of his monthly income. The next group gets 90% of the low amount and 32% of the next higher set of AIME. The highest earners get the same but only 15% of their highest covered earnings. What the Bolsheviks want to do is deny SS retirement coverage for the high earners.
“Social Security would be best cut off for those 55 or below.”
Nice try but I’ve already “contributed” more than $200,000 to the scheme. Better to kick all the bums and frauds off SSDI and shift that to SS.
No it isn't, it is fully funded with treasury bonds. </s>
I just looked up the author - Ramesh Ponnuru. Wikipedia calls him ‘conservative’....
Except that the life expectancy for women is higher than men, and the life expectancy of minorities is usually less than whites. And single people have a lower life expectancy and on average lower incomes than married couples. And lower income people have lower life expectancy than the middle class and wealthy.
So while overall your proposal is theoretically revenue neutral, in practice it exacerbates what is already a wealth transfer from lower income males and minorities to middle class and wealthy white women.
Being married to a white woman and having studiously pursued a career that does not contribute to social security until I achieved financial independence, I’m OK with this. I don’t have any illusions that Social Security will ever be moral or fair, because in the end it’s just theft coupled with a biased welfare program.
If it was yours you could leave it to your children when you die. Federal Insurance Contribution Act
Heavy emphasis on the Contribution part.
It was just a question. It sounds like you have a way to go before you have to decide. I'm there; I could apply if I wanted to. I'm trying to decide if I should.
So I'm just thinking out loud, so to speak.
Amen. I already lost half of what I put into SS in order to get my teacher retirement pension, of which I contributed half.
Next will come means testing to see if you even get it.
Right now, you get socked with income taxes anyway, so if you’re well off, you give roughly a third of it back.
Yeah, in 1984 SS benefits were made taxable up to 50 percent. Then in 1994 made taxable up to 85 percent. We know where those changes are headed; to take more away and give less out. I'm currently receiving SS, but realize it won't always be there in the future.
Well, I’m 50 now. I’ll hit 65 right when the shit really hits the fan as far as boomer numbers go. Depending upon who is talking about it, 1965 is either the last year of the boomers generation, or the first year of the next, so basically, I figure I’m screwed. Not that I really care. Plan to work ‘til I die, or longer if that’s an option.
No kabar it was robbed when the politicians started to transfer the money to the general budget for spending directed elsewhere.
It was never transferred to the General Fund. The money comes in and is immediately put into T-bills, which are just as valid as those held by the Chinese.
Not paying what is promised is theft plain and simple.
Probably an anchor baby!
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