Darlin, we don't have enough money left to "help the situation." As I said, we've paid and paid and paid. Many of us will never get to retire in the first place. If we don't have a "right" after paying in for 50 years, who does?
Actually, in a non-sustainable pyramid scheme, nobody has a "right" to anything.
When the pyramid-shaped house of cards collapses, everyone after that point will be left holding the bag. That comes under the "Life Aint Fair Clause".
Both the American and the European welfare states were designed with the assumption of at least a steady population of productive taxpayers. However, the Baby Boom generation produced less children and 40% of all Americans pay little or no taxes. It will be literally impossible for tax-paying members of Generations X and Generation Y to support the welfare state once Baby Boomers retire and demand that the U.S. Government to finance their retirement.
I was born in 1954 and I am planning my retirement with the assumption that I will not recieve a single dollar from Social Security.
The 'Rats have eaten all the cheese on that one, they got their 60-year incumbency and Third Rail. I'm sure they're ahead of the curve still, and have their foam pointy-fingers all ready to go for the collapse-and-recrimination phase. They are so looking forward to putting all of us conservatives on trial for something.
I was born in 1954 and I am planning my retirement with the assumption that I will not recieve a single dollar from Social Security.
Ditto, good assumption. I never look long at the forms Social Security sends me telling me how much I'm going to get. I'm surprised they don't send it to me, stapled to a Motor Voter application with the "Democratic" box already checked.
My retirement is what I saved, invested in, and took from my 401(k)'s, plus what I received from the sale of inherited family property that was homesteaded in 1862. I doubt Social Security will add much value to that -- certainly nothing like what they took from me, when those dollars were bigger and could have earned so much more in an IRA , 401(k), or "wraparound" variable annuity of the kind Congress made illegal in 1981 because it would have attracted too much savings HELLO!!!.
When I think about Bob Dole and everything he's done to screw over people's ability to save and invest, I'd like to know why he isn't on a Soylent Green early-out list.