Posted on 09/08/2025 6:45:53 AM PDT by delta7
As the national debate intensifies over the solvency of Social Security, Truth in Accounting (TIA) is urging policymakers and the public to look deeper: beyond “trust fund” projections and into the silent erosion of benefits through inflation. TIA board member Chuck Chokel has compiled a sobering analysis of the dollar’s decline over three overlapping 50-year periods. His findings illustrate that even if Social Security checks keep coming, their purchasing power has steadily—and dramatically—shrunk: 1925–1975: $100 in 1925 had the purchasing power of $33.21 in 1975, representing a 67% decrease in purchasing power.
1950–2000: $100 in 1950 was worth just $13.92 in 2000, a decrease in purchasing power of 86%.
1975–2025: $100 in 1975 is worth only $16.40 in 2025, representing an 84% decrease in purchasing power.
Since 1925, the dollar has lost 95% percent of its purchasing power.
“These numbers tell a devastating story,” said Sheila A. Weinberg, Founder and CEO of Truth in Accounting. “The dollar has been consistently devalued across generations, yet elected officials and media rarely discuss that a $100 Social Security benefit in 1975 has the purchasing power of only $16.40 today, an 84% decline.” “Even if the checks arrive on time, what will they be worth?” Chokel asks. “We’re fighting over numbers on paper while ignoring what those numbers can actually buy.”
The day of reckoning is near.
Government promises are almost all hollow. Actually, blatant, outright lies is more like it.
Is there something I’ve been painfully watching for decades. It all started when I was in high school and they raised the price of gum from $0.05 for 5 sticks to $0.10 for eight sticks. I didn’t buy a gum again for over a decade.
I’ve been saying for 30 years that the day of reckoning is coming. But yes, I now believe it is near. I don’t think Trump can do anything to stop it. The writing has been on the wall for a long time. Those that saw this coming have always been right. The fatal flaw in their opinion was horribly miss timing when it’s going to happen.
Notice nobody talks about millionaires anymore? It’s about billionaires now. And I doubt very seriously that it would be very long before we start talking about trillionaires. Each one is a multiplication by a thousand of the one before it. And yet people’s wages have not been going up a thousand times have they?
I see a third world country as a country that has a small percentage of rich people and everyone else’s poor. And that’s how I’m starting to see California.
Buckle up. Because this ride is it about to be a doozy.
The average annual income in the USA in 1925 was $5,425.
The average family income in 1950 was $3,300.
In 1975, the median family income in the United States was approximately $13,720.
Median household income in the United States was $42,148 in the year 2000.
The average annual salary and income in the US in 2025 is $66,622.
Yeah.... Lets just revert back to the good ole days some
100 or more years ago. Get on your pony and ride Clyde,
ride. What you gonna do tonight? I may get out and look
at the moon/stars and smell whats blowing in the wind. I
Hope no one has farted.
If anyone can stop it—its Trump.
Imho he’ll stop it. Why? Because the USA is going to be growing at a 6% rate starting next year or the year after and will continue to do so for as much as 20 years.
The federal deficit is going to zero and then to surplus in 2-3 years.
When I started driving cars in the 1960s, gas cost $0.27 a gallon.
If anyone can stop it—it’s Trump.
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Not likely, history shows ALL paper currencies are debased eventually returning to zero…over 4,000 paper notes in history have gone bust.
1) the USD index has dropped 11.7 percent since January.
2) Record amounts of US debt instruments are being sold off, worldwide.
3) The world’s Central Banks across the world are selling US debt and buying Gold, in historic amounts.
Trump is the best we have, but he simply can’t force sovereign nations to use USD’s, as we are witnessing…..and as he has shown, he can’t stop Congress from spending and further increasing our debt which is mathematically impossible to pay off.
It’s not inflation, it’s debasement of the dollar.
The baby boomers had their cake. Then destroyed their offsprings future. No responsibility will be taken.
bump
The last 5 years feel worse than the published numbers. The kids don’t see things as being too high because their reference point is NOW. To them prices are just what things cost not a cost relative to what they have been.
I is becoming like the Wiemar Republic with a wheelbarrow of money needed to buy groceries. Not quite there but headed there exponentially. The rate of increase is becoming asymptotic to infinity. The growth of the money supply was nearly there just two or three years ago.
As for all the money to one side, to be in the top 1% of net worth is supposedly about $12 million, $20 million puts you in about the top 99.7%. This tells you that the money is being piled to once place. It was the same in the Depression and the same in a game of Monopoly. When all the wealth is in the hands of just a few money dries up.
https://www.kiplinger.com/personal-finance/605075/are-you-rich
It’s not inflation, it’s debasement of the dollar.
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You are correct.
We do not despise Congress enough.
Trump is the best we have, but he simply can’t force sovereign nations to use USD’s,
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Agree your vision is 20/20 looking out the side windows of the moving car.
Right now there is plenty of demand for US bills on the short end of the curve. On the long end there is much less demand so Bessent is buying the long end with short term bills but the amounts are are something like 100 billion. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to 37 trillion or so. He’s just doing it to keep the long end notes liquid. He can do that for a long time. But if you look out the front window of the car—it looks like the federal government will be able to balance the budget in 2-3 years as happened in the 1990’s—mostly just by restraining spending while federal revenues increase—which is the way Newt’s congress did it.’
The really big action starts in 2-3 years when growth rates go over 5% and stay there for 20 years...as happened in the Industrial revolution in the late 1800’s.
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