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The hype surrounding this bill is just that, hype. An American working in England pays payroll taxes to the UK system and not SSA, yet can still retire in his home country of the USA and receive SS benefits as though he worked here all the time. The reverse is also true. Hence, since there are more Americans working abroad then foreigners working here, we actually benefit from these programs.

There is a huge difference between most of the other countries and Mexico. For Social Security totalization to work with a country three criteria need to be met:

1. The number of participants has to be relatively small.
2. The number of people coming from the other country to the US has to be similar to the number going from the US to the other country.
3. The retirement program and average wage of each country has to be similar so there is no major incentive to prefer one country's plan over another.

An agreement with Mexico fails on all three points. 1. 15-20 million illegals is a huge number. 2. Vastly more Mexicans are working here than Americans in Mexico. 3. Our SS program is skewed to disproportionately pay the poor, while Mexico's provides payments proportionate to what you paid in. Also our payments would be much greater than Mexico's even without that skewing.

Such a treaty is a good idea with the UK, Germany or even (shudder) France because it is mutually beneficial. The benefits are almost all one way in such an agreement with Mexico.

What you write makes sense. The problem is that it isn't quite the case here. You seem to be saying that illegal-immigrants can collect Social Security retirement checks. That simply is not true. I'm not referring to someone collecting on a fraudulent basis, heck a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant like myself born in America can defraud the SSA, yet I don't hear anyone clambering to cut off my funds.

Illegal immigration is a different subject entirely.

What does it take to be eligible to receive Social Security benefits in the first place? It depends on where you live. In the U.S., a worker who turned 62 after 1990 needs about 40 calendar quarters of coverage to receive retirement benefits. Under totalization agreements, a partial benefit can be paid based on the proportion of the worker's total career completed in the paying country. The agreements allow the Social Security Administration to "totalize" U.S. and foreign credits if the worker has six quarters, or 18 months, of U.S. coverage.

Let’s looks at a more concrete example. If an individual accumulates 5 years of coverage under the U.S. Social Security system and 10 years of coverage in another country’s system that requires 15 years of coverage for full benefit eligibility, both countries will treat the individual as if a total of 15 years had been completed under each system. However, the U.S. benefit would be 5/15 of the total benefit earned in both countries during the 15-year period (and 10/15 in the other country).

Brad Phillips, a spokesman for TREA Senior Citizens League (a very vocal critic of totalization with Mexico) has argued that a totalization agreement with Mexico could “give billions of dollars worth of our seniors’ Social Security money to illegal Mexican workers”. This is a stretch to say the least, since the agreement deals only with the benefits earned by immigrants during their time of LEGAL employment in the USA.

Whose money is it to begin with? The SSA's Office of the Chief Actuary has estimated that a totalization agreement with Mexico would cost the U.S. $78 million in the first year, and $650 million by 2050. (That's millions, not billions) And that most of this amount is based on permanent residents and U.S. citizens receiving their SSA pension in Mexico.

Understandably, many Americans are concerned about the costs of a totalization agreement with Mexico. However, the money that would be paid in a totalization agreement with Mexico is money that never belonged to American workers in the first place. It was earned by Mexicans, not Americans.

People are confusing Social Security with welfare benefits. The reason so many illegal-immigrants live in California is due to their high welfare benefits, but that is a state function not a SSA function.

Think about this for a moment. You are an employer and you knowingly or not, hire an illegal immigrant. You still tax his check 6.2% for FICA and send it to Washington along with matching funds. Your employer matching funds would be spent whether this person was a Mexican or a pure-bred Valley Girl, so it's not in the equation at all.

Now, since the government has been raiding companies, large and small lately for hiring illegal immigrants and making a big deal of it in the media, you as an employer are certainly going to ask for a social security card before you hire this person. If it's fake, who cares? You have plausible deniability and won't be going to court over this. But you most certainly will not be likely to hire the guy and pay him under the counter.

The social security administration freely takes this money posting it to a specific account for X number of years. Now, when this person decides to retire, if they are found to be in the USA illegally, SSA isn't going to pay them. Nor are they going to refund any of the money they were taxed.

Remember that in general, or on the average, nobody gets all their money back. Theoretically, SSA collects money, holds money, earns a bit of money, pays benefits and still has enough to pay for administration. Illegal immigrants more than likely are going to be in that portion of the population that dies sooner than later. I personally can understand not advertising this information.

Actuaries know their stuff, hands down. People that paid the most into SS will receive the highest benefits, period. Today benefits are paid out on a certain life expectancy like 75 years old. If you retire at 62 your yearly benefit will be (your portion) divided by 13 and if your retire at 67 it will be (the same portion) divided by 8. If you live longer, then you are lucky. I've been paying into the SS system for 42 years. Thirty eight of them I have paid the maximum in taxes, hence, my monthly benefit will be much larger than someone who has been a minimum wage earner all his life. It will also be larger than a Mexican who paid SS tax for only 5 years even if he paid the maximum.

In my opinion all of this hype is simply obfuscation to hide the real problem of the borrowing (stealing) from the SSA trust fund for general spending. Sometime down the line that money has to be repaid, and it has to come from the general funds of the United States. That is, normal federal income taxes. By positioning the problem as a S.S. problem our congress can all glad hand themselves by raising the Payroll Tax and/or the $87K upper limit and claim that they finally "made the toughest decision facing America today."

After all, everyone that works pays payroll taxes, but a little less than half of us pay federal income taxes.

I agree that 15-20 million illegal immigrants are a huge problem, a problem that must be solved. It's just not a Social Security problem, and may be, quite ironically, a solution.

Just my opinion, by the way.