Well, not so fast. As part of that deal Reagan and Tip O’neil implemented to “save” social security, the congress critters raised the social securtiy taxes so that the baby boomers could be covered when they reached retirement age.
So for years, an excess was paid into social security and non-negotiable government bonds were purchased as an investment. It’s part of the national debt.
True there’s no specific account with your name on it, but still it did not all go to support granny and the parents, some was put aside for the future retirement problem posed by the boomers.
As far as pensions in general, lots of people in banking found out during the Clinton era financial closings/crisis, that when your company goes bankrupt, your pension is all gone too. Company benefits are not guaranteed-the bond holders come first.
However, if you are a union workers such as the UAW, you might have a president step in and ignore the law, and save your pension to the detriment of the bond holders(which impacts other people’s pensions, since lots of those bonds were held by pension funds other than UAW).
Even if there’s no “cut” in benefits, the government is making sure that the purchasing power of social security will be reduced to the point where it will just be a spit in the “basket” compared to what that basket used to hold since helicopter Ben started printing money hand over fist.
Worse than a 25% haircut for sure.
like the boomers haven't shelled out enough money and enough years already......WE are not posing any problems....the problems were heaped upon us...
instead of reducing payments to seniors by just a tiny amount back in the early 80's, instead the workers got to pay more and more, including ever increasing medicare taxes, AND told that they had to work even longer....BS...
SS started out miniscule...then it changed to be a huge bite out or our paychecks....wasn't it like 0.5% when it started?...and now its just under 8%...
which all means is that there are people collecting now that paid hardly anything....not to mention the billions thrown out to "disabled" people with the bad knees.....etc....not to mention the new immigrants who just happend to have lost their BC but swear they are over age 62...I know this happens...
Those IOU’s SS holds are essentially worthless because to make good on them Treasury has to sell new debt to redeem them.
It may get down to just what “Entitlement” we want to save as we can’t have them all. So take your pick.