You, and Eternal Vigilance are correct as you said: All the money you sent in for SS was spent as soon as it arrived!
Yup. The number of people around here who are willing to opine on how to "fix" Social Security, without having any idea as to the basics of how the program works, is astonishing.
But SS has always been sold as if it were our money set aside for us. I know that isn't true, but, for example, have you received those printouts from SS showing how much was withheld and advising how much you will receive when you retire, based upon those contributions? Even here at FR it is hard to blame us for swallowing what the govt feeds us... or at least blaming govt for selling this junk to us.....
Or, in the case of some here, of throwing bricks at those who simply point out how the system really works...
;-)
You make a good point, although I note that those printouts we receive from the Social Security Administration specifically note that the calculation of future benefits is predicated on current law, and that Congress can change the benefits formula, or raise the age at which a person receives benefits, or otherwise change or eliminate the system entirely. Despite this, people believe what they want to believe about Social Security, even people that might not otherwise trust what the federal government said about anything else. It's a fascinating phenomenon, really.
But you're right: it's understandable that people are confused, given the sales job that's been down on Social Security over the years. I'm more than 20 years away from reaching "retirement age," so I haven't, until recent months, even cared to think about the workings of the Social Security system. In terms of planning for my retirement, I've been much more interested in such things as how my 401(k)'s been doing. As a consequence, it's only recently that I started to dig into how the Social Security program really works. To the extent I'd given the issue much thought before then, most of my preconceptions were spectacularly wrong.
I suppose one point I'd make is, no matter how much we may have been taken in by the carnival barkers in Congress, among the political parties, and those employed by such groups as the AARP, if we're going to have a sensible discussion about what to do to fix the problem, those that are engaged in the discussion need to purge from their minds their hopeful misconceptions about the Social Security program and try to come to grips with what it actually is. Otherwise, we're just going to be talking in circles at each other, as this thread tends to demonstrate, I think.
I think this thread also tends to demonstrate the ugly inter-generational animosities that will be generated by any serious Social Security debate.