Posted on 06/11/2005 10:57:55 AM PDT by FairOpinion
"Americans turning 65 this year can expect to live, on average, until they are 83, four and a half years longer than the typical 65-year-old could expect in 1940."
To get the REAL life expectancy, the proper thing to do is look at the life expectancy of a young adult, say age 20. By looking at only the life expectancy of those who actually turn 65, they are ignoring a large fraction of the population, who paid into the system, but died, before they collected.
The definition of life expectancy is the AVERAGE age, people expected to live, which means hald live longer, half live less.
Please check out this Historical Life Expectancy table
Look at the life expectance of a 20 year old in 1939: it's 47.76 years, for a total life expectancy age of 67.76 for white males, and 59.76 for "all other males". For white females at age 20 life expectancy was the longest, to age 71.
But this is still not a very long time to pay them social security. Life expectancy means that HALF the people die younger than that age.
Don't think Congress at that time didn't know what they were doing -- they knew that they collect from everyone, but will only have to pay out to less than half the population for just a few years, while everyone paid into it.
Today life expectancy of white males at age 20 is 76 years, over 8 years longer, than in the 1930-s.
I guess, the Democrats think we should go back to raising the age social security benefits are received to an age, so less than half the people get to live to collect, and even those, for only 2-3 years.
Looking at those life expectancies, makes it obvious, that social security is just another tax.
That is why the only reform that makes sense is to allow people to have personal accounts for their retirement savings.
There is no good reason I can think of why those who reach age 65 should suddenly be around to float around playing shuffleboard, visiting relatives, and clogging up the golf courses and cruise ships.
"Man shall earn his living by the sweat of his brow."
His own brow.
SS is a tax, and it's original purpose was to provide a for the years in which the aged were UNABLE to care fore themselves.
As long as they're able, why wouldn't someone want to be doing something productive. If you must, then pass a law that mandates a 35 hour week for 65 and older
Are you sweating? Are you a double-dipper?
No, not yet. The military retirement will make that possible some day, but that's not the point. :>)
Why should healthy seniors expect to spend 15-20 years sipping icetea by the poolside while their youngsters send them money? It seems to me that that idea is sort of broke.
Social Security should be terminated. First, give everyone the option of receiving a lump sum payment (their total contributions, plus total employer contributons, plus some interest), after which the gov't is off the hook and the recipient can invest the money privately, and pay no more payroll taxes. Most people up to age 45 or so (maybe older) would take the money and run. Those close to retirement or already retired would stay in the system, and it would take about 20 years to "bury" everyone. Stop taking new participants beginning on a date, such as 1/1/06. It's possible to stop this fraudulent, socialist quagmire and give people freedom of choice among existing private investments. Demo Rats and fake capitalists will say "no", people can't be trusted with their own money.
That doesn't make sense. The retirees have been PAYING into the system for decades, and according to their "contract" may now begin DRAWING from their "account." These retirees aren't taking money from youngsters; they're taking it from the pool of funds they've paid into for the past several decades.
Am I misunderstanding this?
It was sold as a pension and disability system as well as an insurance system for survivors. Where did you ever get the idea that SS was for "the aged were UNABLE to care fore (sic) themselves?"
As the article correctly points out, there are plenty of Americans with "uninteresting, stressful or physically demanding, who are often eager to retire and doubtful of their employment prospects in their mid-to-late 60's." The idea that a coal miner, farm worker, construction worker must work until his 70s to collect retirement won't sell nor is it fair.
As long as they're able, why wouldn't someone want to be doing something productive. If you must, then pass a law that mandates a 35 hour week for 65 and older.
Work for most people is a means to house, clothe and feed themselves. It has nothing to do with being productive. Pass a law mandating a 35 hour work week for 65 and older? You must be smoking something. What kind of society is that?
What this article is about is the latest tactic taken by Congress (both parties) to come up with another patchwork fix like they did in 1983. Both parties would rather perpetuate this Ponzi scheme by raising taxes and decreasing benefits to keep the revenue stream coming in. Our children and their children will pay the costs.
"Am I misunderstanding this?"
Yes. there is no "pool". the social security that todays oldsters paid, say, 25 years ago, was spent 25 years ago.
So to collect today, they need some other sucker to pay into it today.
Yes. SS has for decades been billed as a pay as you go system. It's lousy. It should be an investment, but it isn't and doesn't pretend to be. That's what the Pres. is trying to fix.
If you get to 65 and have the investment cash to sip julips at the clubhouse, then more power to you. But there's no good reason for youngsters to keep us on vacation for 20 years at a level to which we've become accustomed.
BUMP!
BUMP!
Because of life expectancy compared to the age of receipt. It was designed to provide income for about the final 2 or 3 years of life.....the declining years.
Now it pays for about 20 years.
15.3%
I am paying it too...I, too, would gladly forgive my portion of debt if they would just kill the program.
Maybe this is the secret driver behind some people pushing euthanesia: Kill the "old folks", before they need to be paid social security and look how much we could save on Medicare.
We should follow the example of Chile. Their switch to privatization is a roaring success. Nobody got hurt, everyone is fully funded.
In Britain and Chile, lessons for revamping Social Security (success with private accounts)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1362251/posts
in Chile, things were even more dire. The military government, facing what was by all accounts an unsustainable retirement program and a possible default on its obligation to retirees, replaced the state-run pay-as-you-go system with a three-pillared, largely private one. Twenty-five years later, Chile is looked to as a model of how to retool Social Security.
Chile has what economists call a fully funded system, containing enough money to cover all retirees if they simultaneously decided to cash out.
The first pillar is the state's responsibility, which covers workers who retired before 1980 and guarantees minimum pensions for poor workers.
The second and main pillar is the obligatory monthly payroll deduction of 12.3 percent. Ten percent goes into the worker's own account, administered by one of six private pension funds, while 2.3 percent covers administrative fees.
The third pillar is a voluntary, tax-deductible savings plan administered by banks. "We have to be proud of Chile's system," says Guillermo Arthur, who runs Chile's pension program. He says that pensions have grown an average of 10.4 percent since 1981, far exceeding the 4 percent that he says they need to be profitable.
Today, Chile has more than $60 billion in pension investments, equivalent to more than a third of the country's gross domestic product. Mr. Arthur says that these funds have been crucial to economic growth in the 1980s because pensions were invested in Chilean companies.
"What this article is about is the latest tactic taken by Congress (both parties) to come up with another patchwork fix like they did in 1983. Both parties would rather perpetuate this Ponzi scheme by raising taxes and decreasing benefits to keep the revenue stream coming in. Our children and their children will pay the costs."
BINGO. You are right.
I don't know why the Republicans aren't pointing to the success of Chile, where they introduced private accounts with great success, 25 years ago!
(see my post 18 for the article and details)
The point is that the entire social security system was founded on empty promises: when the started it, they knew, that over half the people will NOT live to collect from it, and those who do would only do so for a few years.
So Congress wants to go back and "reform it", so it will be that way again: you pay in, but get nothing, or almost nothing out.
The private accounts would ensure that everyone would get something out, and could even leave it to their heirs.
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