Point is - there’s no lockbox or anything where your contributions were saved. They spent it all.
The money that goes to pay for your benefits come straight from the government, which gets it from an ever-shrinking number of working taxpayers. Whatever you “contributed”, it’s effectively a government benefit that can be changed at the whim of politicians and the general public.
It’s not your private property. It’s not “yours”. It’s a government entitlement that is as hollow a promise as every other political promise that’s going to go belly up as the US economy continues to decline and the government runs out of other people’s money.
Happy Dependence Day!
I still object to it being lumped in with the welfare herd. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 14, and I'm a great-grandpa now (still not retired). With the boom/bust cycles in my industry over the decades, the money I paid into Social Security is as much as I have been able to set aside for retirement (and keep there).
I have paid more in income taxes in just the last 5 years than that amount (well over), so count that, too. Somehow, the stigma of "entitlement" doesn't fit. It isn't like I was some illegal who popped up to draw benefits--I've been paying in for half a century.
There was a guy on here, I intentionally dis-remember his screen name, who flat out said that the military and veterans were no better than mercenaries and were paid what they deserved when they were in uniform and should get not one more red cent. Are you of the same opinion?