Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that’s close to $220,500.
If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you’d have $892,919.98.
If you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you’re 95 if you retire at age 65) and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.
The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had.
Entitlement my ___, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn’t make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!
Congressional benefits —— free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that’s welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement entitlements?
I understand most federal government retirements benefits, are now nearly double private sector incomes.
If you take the amount they paid and simply attribute interest to it ~ that pretty much covers anything they're ever going to pay back as a retirement annuity.
Congress is covered by the same system.
BTW, Postal employees are also covered by the same systems BUT their agency pays an additional sum into the government retirement system that other agencies are required to pay ~ but they don't. Currently USPS is about $98 billion AHEAD of any possible need ~
Entitlement my ___, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn’t make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!
AMEN AMEN AMEN TO THAT!
For each year, I used the average yield for the longest-term Treasury bond that was available then (usually, 30 years). I simplified it by assuming that my Social Security contributions were invested in that bond at the end of the calendar year.
Each year, I took all the dividends from the bonds I had bought the previous years, and combined it with my contributions and invested them in a new Treasury bond at the average rate for that year.
In just a bit less than 40 years of working, I would have about $800,000 in the bank right now. That's not theoretical: it's historical, based on what is allegedly being done with excess Social Security contribution: invested in long-term bonds.
If I hold the existing bonds to maturity, and continue to purchase bonds at the existing (albeit low) yields, I'd have $1,600,000 at my full retirement age, and $1,850,000 at age 70 if I wait until then to start withdrawing (I have other assets and income I could draw down before then).
Plug that data into www.immediateannuities.com, and you would have lifetime guaranteed income of $13,042/month. Keep in mind that it would be a fixed amount, with no CPI adjustment.
By comparison, Social Security promises to pay me about $5,000 a month, if I wait until age 70 and inflation averages about 3%/year. There won't be enough money to do so, but that's another issue....
But, let's do a direct comparison: at 3%/year inflation after I turn age 70, I'd have to live to age 112 before my inflation-adjusted Social Security benefits would even match the annuity payment. I'd have to live until age 174 in order for the value of the Social Security benefits to exceed the value of the annuity payments.