[MarkL]

in other words... It's just ANOTHER TAX then!!!

I've had this conversation with a number of people in foreign countries who claim that American workers are taxed so minimally, we have nothing to complain about. When I mentioned that in addition to the federal, state, and local income taxes, we pay an additional 15% into FICA and Medicare, they all claimed, "well that doesn't count, because that's your retirement account."

No matter what I said, they refused to believe that this was nothing more than an additional tax going directly into the general fund, to be spent by the government, and there wasn't a penny with my name on it.

Unfortunately, too many Americans believe that too. I've been paying into this scam for 36 years now, and I don't believe that I'll ever see a penny of it back.

Mark

[Chode]

i expect to get zilch also...

[The Pack Knight]

Seriously. Even assuming Social Security payments were a contractual obligation of the government, they're in the form of a contingent benefit plan, not a savings account. It is, after all, the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, not the Federal Savings Contributions Act.

You're not making deposits into a savings account. You're paying premiums on an insurance policy. If you die before reaching retirement age, you and your heirs get nothing.

It is no accident that when someone began collecting benefits at age 65 in the 1930s, he had already outlived the average life expectancy by 3 years. Fortunately for us, though unfortunately for the health of the Social Security scheme, growing old is a much less fortuitous occurrence than it used to be.

If anyone still believes that Social Security is a savings account and that you are just "getting your money back", just look up the name Ida May Fuller.