I’m not sure that a lifelong expectation of receiving benefits from a welfare program makes it anything other than a welfare program.
Social Security is not a welfare program.
For up to the first $100K a every person in America makes , 14% of their income is skimmed right off the top to be put into the Social Security program.
That a person has provided 14% of their income to the Government for their entire working life for a program that promises to provide a retirement income for them and is a realistic expectation that they should receive a return on their “investment”
“That a person has provided 14% of their income to the Government for their entire working life for a program that promises to provide a retirement income for them and is a realistic expectation that they should receive a return on their “investment””
Amen. A person investing this stream of cash, in conservative investments across four and a half decades, should expect about 3 to 4 times the amount of social security payouts.
An investment manager who returned the annuity SS does would be arrested as a thief and would have some explaining to do.
The SS wage cap goes up almost every year. Currently, it is $117,000. In 2007 it was $97,500. There is no wage cap for Medicare taxes, which are 1.45% each for employer and employee. The total payroll tax is 15.3%.
The tax rate for OASDI (SS and DI) is 6.2% each for the employer and employee or 12.4%. Social Security Tax Rates
That a person has provided 14% of their income to the Government for their entire working life for a program that promises to provide a retirement income for them and is a realistic expectation that they should receive a return on their “investment”
SS is an insurance program, not a pension plan. The money you contribute does not belong to you once deposited into the SSTF. See SCOTUS case Flemming v. Nestor.
You could pay into SS for 50 years, drop dead a day before being scheduled to receive benefits, and all you would get is a small burial allowance. Your contributions are not part of your estate.
Current SS recipients will get far more out of SS than they contributed into it. In the case of Medicare, the average recipient gets three times more in benefits than they contributed.
Social Security is a wealth redistribution plan. Although everyone pays in at a flat rate up to the income limit, the benefits are paid out on a progressive basis. A lower earner gets more credit for the dollars they pay in than the last dollar paid in by a high earner.