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I ran the numbers six ways from Sunday and the only way someone would get more out of SS then they put in is if they worked the absolute minimum and lived to be 92. Not impossible I will admit, just unlikely.

At that point then yes, they would get back more then they put in. Of course you also have to figure in the bunch of people who will pay in and never draw out a dime because they died.

SS is a horrible program, like most government programs and it is extraordinarily wasteful, like most... eh.. make that all.. government programs.

The government keeps it because it keeps the money flowing in at a record pace. And because it allows them to jerk you around.

Based on 2022 numbers to keep the math simple, in order to be eligible for SS you need 40 credits, at four credits per year at a minimum income of $6040 for the year. That's $60M in income, not SS taxes. Multiplied by 6.2%, that's $3745 in taxes paid in to SS. Lets say you make this bare income for 30 years, so you've paid in $11,235. At 30 years of income, the minimum SS payment is currently $950. You'll make your money back (ignoring the interest part) in less than 12 years.

But wait, in 1990 (30 years ago), minimum income for credit was $520, or $2080 a year. So the average from then till now was 30% lower than our numbers (6000-2000 / 2 = 4000/year), meaning this guy only paid in about $7500 in SS taxes, so now we're at less than eight years to balance, ignoring interest. So they only have to live to 74-75, not the 92 you calculated somehow..?

Interest is hard to calculate, not just from varying numbers in/compounding, but also because that's not interest on your account, that's what SS makes in income based on the money you gave them. What you pay in monthly is automatically adjusted when they calculate your benefits, and is related to the average wage for that year, not what SS made in interest off your money. Hard to find numbers on the bonds' interest rates, but what I can find seems to vary between one and two percent. So our guy's money earned SS less than $3000 in interest, making the eight-year return into maybe eleven years to balance out. (Assuming the income is spread evenly, that's $22/month SS taxes for 30 years at 2% comes out to $2800.)

Of course, these numbers do exclude the employer-side of SS taxes, since most people don't count those as taxes on their wages (even though ANYTHING your employer pays based on you is essentially directly a tax on your wages, as that amount is factored in to what they pay for employing you, and reduces what the company could have afforded to pay you), so these numbers are more realistically doubled, placing our break-even in the mid-80s, so not that likely, but definitely more probable than your 92-year-old dude.