Well, figure it out.
At retirement, I will have been forced to pay SS for just short of 50 straight years.
While income was way lower, the money was worth an large amount more.
When I was 16 I could walk into the Ford dealership and plunk down $4,000 and change for a brand new Mach one with the Boss 302 option.
Of course after high school graduation, I was earning the princely sum of $1.90 per hour.
That money that they took - and supposedly invested, haha - was a lot of money to me, and if it were saved and invested for all of that time, I would be wealthy from that alone.
That 69 Boss car that I bought then now goes for anywhere from $75 to $250,000 today.
As far as I can see, SS was outright theft.