[Jaysun]

There is no excuse for any Senior to be duped about SS and Medicare. Nothing has changed, except that Medicare is paying better than it has in the past. Our SS checks come every month just like always.

I was self employed for years and years, and paid 15.3 percent.

What?
The "duped" part is: Surprise! SS is unsustainable because it's basically run like a chain letter. Surprise! You'd have been better off stuffing 10% of your income (average income of $35K a year) under your mattress. You'd have about $175,000 right now. As it stands, you can draw about $12,000 a year when you turn 65. If you live to the average age of 75, you'll have received only $120,000. It's a rip off, but you were forced to participate.

[jimbergin]

"If you live to the average age of 75, you'll have received only $120,000. It's a rip off, but you were forced to participate."

average life expectancy at age 65 is 17.9 years or more. Your age 75 is closer to expectancy at birth. It gets longer the older you get. But I still agree that Social Security was/is a rip off on all of us.

[Coldwater Creek]

Look! I agree with you that managing our own accounts would have been more beneficial, but we were not duped.

[LexBaird]

The "duped" part is: Surprise! SS is unsustainable because it's basically run like a chain letter. Surprise! You'd have been better off stuffing 10% of your income (average income of $35K a year) under your mattress. You'd have about $175,000 right now. As it stands, you can draw about $12,000 a year when you turn 65. If you live to the average age of 75, you'll have received only $120,000. It's a rip off, but you were forced to participate.

Hardly a surprise. Recently, I found a Reader's Digest from October of 1967. It had an article on how SS really worked and what the structural problems were. The seniors who are "surprised" about this are the same one's who are "surprised" to find out that cigarettes cause cancer.