AMEN! I am so sick and tired of being accused of receiving an "entitlement*" via my Social Security check.
* a right granted by law or contract, especially to financial benefits from the government. Source.
If I could have every penny I ever paid into social security right now, I’d take that in a heartbeat over what it will pay me. I could easily retire quite comfortably on it. Much more comfortably than with what SS would actually pay me...
The claims for disability are really hurting the system. I would not be surprised if the whole system needs another percent increase to fund everybody leaving on disability or living off of SSI.
Any Sonuvabi7ch who served as a Senator sucking on the Government Teat for 20 years, sucking up the perks, and now collecting his full salary as a Pension and doesn’t have to be on Obamacare, who calls me Greedy can kiss my greedy old ass.
It would also be interesting to know exactly how much Mr.Simpson is drawing in overall government pensions. He gamed miltary service to avoid combat in Korea, instead arriving in Germany (after the war) for a nice easy tour with his new bride...I wonder how much his military time added to the senate pension.
How much did you pay over your working career relative to how much you’ve collected thus far and how much more you anticipate collecting over the remainder of your expected lifetime?
If the latter exceeds “the former, plus reasonable market returns on investment”, you’re collecting an entitlement, profiting from those younger than you.
The Social Security Trust Fund is a Myth. Saying Social Security is self Funded is another myth. Whatever is collected in FICA Taxes is robbed by the politicians to pay for other projects.
Actually the same can be said for highways and the postal service. Both have problems but the biggest trouble has come from congress itself.
Well that's the way is SHOULD work at least, if the government set aside every dollar you and your employer paid into social security and put it in an account with your name on it that earned a decent return then you could probably live off what was in the account after your retire without any further contributions from the government. Unfortunately since the government spends the Social Security tax revenue as soon as they get it (usually to pay benefits to those already retired), they never earn anything on what you paid in. So if you pay in $60,000 over 30 years of employment and the government pays you $15,000 a year in benefits when you turn 65. In four years you have gone through everything you paid in during your working years and everything after that is essentially a taxpayer funded "entitlement". Say you live to 85. The government collected $60,000 from you, but paid out $300,000, for a difference of $240,000. Now multiply that by 50,000,000 retires... That's an unsustainable situation any way you cut it.
All you have to do is take the SS statement of earnings through the years, mine goes back to 1967. Take the amount of SS withheld that year and “buy” shares of the Dow Jones index at year end.
The data is easily available at Yahoo Finance.
Then “sell” at today’s Dow Jones index, even though it has not gone anywhere in 10 years. Add in dividends of around 3% per year.
In my case, my hypothetical account is worth 1.5 to 2 million. Enough for an annuity of 70K. I’m luck to get 20K from SS.
It is welfare. Your payments went to earlier retirees; current workers pay your benefit.
The Supreme Court decision in Fleming vs. Nestor made it clear that you have no vested rights in your prior payments, there is no contractual right to Social Security benefit. You have no more contractual right to Social Security than to unemployment benefit (also referred to as “insurance”). Social Security is a transfer program, no different from the myriad of other such programs. Your payments have gone, transferred to earlier retirees. The so-called “insurance” aspect of it was just a tactic to get it passed. Social Security, like other welfare programs, takes from one group to subsidize another.
Are you aware that there are parents who are working extremely hard to have their child or children identified with some sort of learning disability (and many who have succeeded) in order to claim SSI benefits from that self-funding program you so ferverently gloat over? So, the children who are getting these SSI benefits, and who have NEVER paid into that system, are reaping benefits that others have paid - that self-funding program is falling apart.
One "curb on projected entitlement spending" has already been implemented. The "payroll tax holiday" will lessen the payout to future retirees. This would be quite apparent if the SSA were still sending out yearly Social Security Statements. Workers would see their "estimated benefits" going down each year the "holiday" is in effect.
Glad to hear this so I can ignore the Trustees of the Social Security Trust fund who claim it's going bankrupt in twenty years time, two years earlier than last year.
Another face palm moment for Frouma. The Supreme Court ruled SS is not what she describes. Joe Blow does not have an "account" with SS where his FICA tax goes into. If SS is an independent program its "trustees" would be thrown in jail for fraud and running a ponzi scheme.
The hacks in both parties are the reason we are in the bad shape this country is in. Why should ANY AMERICAN have to pay the price for the fiscal mistakes made over decades by these hack politicians. This is where “compromise” leads.
A bankrupt country. And now they want us to pay for their mistakes. Off with their heads. Get the pitchforks, tar and feathers out.
It is not an entitlement, it is paid for, it was supposed to be in a trust managed for our benefit... LIE.
I have paid in the following as of last year. It is MY money but the politicians stole it to buy votes for people who are against my interests and want MORE of MY money that I have EARNED. I have no employer contributions... I earned it all by myself and I have been “contributing” for a long, long time and still am.
Actual:
Medicare $206,921.32
Social Security $264,391.06
Total of the two $471,312.39
The present value of these “contributions” at a modest 6% return on the “investment”:
Medicare $381,712.16
Social Security $673,848.35
Total of the two $1,055,560.51
I’ll take a cashier’s check... ha, ha, ha. Fat chance... it is all gone. I am convinced I will not see a DIME of MY money again.
Parasites...I doubt society will ever find any effective new ways of dealing them.
Correction: SS WAS an independent self-funding program. It became welfare when the links between funding and benefits were severed through mixing SS payments into General Funding, and also with means-testing of the supposedly prefunded benefits.
I personally know someone who received a rebuttal smackdown letter from Alan Simpson after criticizing him online.
Sarcastic, self-aggrandizing, in-your-face retort is this guy’s stock in trade. Along with a hair-trigger sensitivity to any sort of criticism.
Sorry, but it IS welfare. Period. Social Security has no account with your name on it. There never was. You paid into SS a tax which went to pay the old age welfare payments of your parents. There was a little left over to go into the kitty as surplus but your generation (collectively) started helping themselves to it early, spending it on frivolous things. Now it's almost gone. If we raise taxes high enough to continue paying old age welfare at the rate we have, we will eventually all starve as the U.S. collapses under a mountain of debt. EVERYTHING must be cut in order for us to survive.