SS has been sorely misrepresented from the get-go. They want you to think it's a prudent retirement program. But it's actually just another tax, paying into the same piggy bank they feel entitled to rob whenever they feel the need to buy some more votes. A Ponzi scheme, in other words!
A proper retirement system would be something like a 401K or IRA. You would have an ownership interest. You would have control. Your heirs would inherit it, should you be so unlucky as your husband or Steve Jobs. If it did fabulously, you would be comfortable. If not, you would be on welfare
. The cookie needs to crumble one way or the other.
But he personally collected none of the SS as he died at 51. SS taxes paid would have been in his name if done properly with the investment he choose to make.
The government put all the FICA in the general fund and spent it mostly on the Johnson War on Poverty and poverty won that war with the citizens money and they paid not one red cent for what the government handed them.
It was income re-distribution long before Obama was talking about it....take from the producer to give to the none producer... A lot of people that complain about SS never take into consideration that people like me (72) are still paying to put your kids through school, even tho 5 of my grandchildren went to private school and still had to pay for other peoples education to learn how to put a condom on a banana....My sister at 80 still pays school taxes....for your kids...Is that giving you welfare for your kids education?
I believe this is pretty much how the current Chilean "SS" system is set up.