Posted on 10/28/2017 3:57:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Many Americans rely on Social Security benefits to see them through retirement, but how much should they really be depending on those checks?
Not very much, experts said.
Social Security is not being used as it was intended, said Ric Edelman, executive chairman and co-founder of Edelman Financial Services in Fairfax, Va. and author of The Truth about Your Future. When Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the system in 1933, the program was designed to be a safety net for Americans for those who had no financial support. Now, a great many Americans are relying heavily on Social Security to maintain their lifestyle in retirement.
More than 66 million people received Social Security and/or Supplemental Security Income in August, more than 46 million of which were Americans 65 and older. Social Security makes up a majority of cash income for 61% of elderly beneficiaries, and a third rely on this benefit for 90% or more of their income, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a governmental budget policies think tank based in Washington, D.C. The average monthly retirement benefit under the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance was $1,326, according to the Social Security Administration.
Retired workers received an average of $1,371 while spouses of retired workers received $714 and children of retired workers received $659. Social Security is funding as last resort, and if it goes away there is no government program to serve as a fall back, Edelman said. This is the fall back.
How did Americans get here?
Unfortunately, its a familiar story: many Americans just havent saved enough for retirement, either because of poor planning or an inability to put money away for their futures.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
My dear departed mom’s care was $300,000 for seven years care. That was with a pension of 1,600 and ss of 1,400 per month.
I better be insulating my cardboard box.
The future is not bright here.
Social Security even by its very name taught generations of Americans to fall for the Government Ponzi Scheme.
Bookmark.
Amen! They take the money by threat of force you have to pay it or go to jail and then people bitch I shouldn’t expect to get it back as promised?
Social Security is straight up income redistribution. The tax is paid by people who work and the money is given, mostly, to people who don’t.
It used to be widely believed that the tax they paid went into their very own account, separate from everyone else’s, and they got paid out of that. Even today, there are still people who believe that.
Don't they fund SSI payments out of Social Security funds? I read that drug addicts and other people who made poor life choices get SSI. I am sure they didn't pay a dime into the SS fund. Too busy getting high, robbing gas stations, etc. And what about illegals collecting SS under false pretenses? Those two drains on the SS funds must be eliminated so that honest people who put in 40-50 years of work and contributed all their lives can get what's due them.
Not even necessarily into someone’s pocket. If one has 100 shares of stock worth a dollar a share they have $100 value, but if the next day the highest anyone is willing to pay for it is $0.10 then they have $10 value. That’s why when panic ensues holding paper or digital assets becomes musical chairs.
My brother paid in the max to social security for over 40 years. He became ill in his late fifties and drew disability income for two years and died. His wife received a modest survivors benifit for 4 years and then she died.
If all he and she paid in social security had been in a very modest and conservative investment it would have been worth a couple of million dollars. Their children received nothing.
How it really works: They take 15% of your income, 71/2 percent from you and your employer. You also pay income tax on this tax as it is part of your gross income. When you get the money back you pay tax on it again as it is deemed income. They tax you three times on that income and the rate of return is minimal. Al Capone was an amateur compared to the federal government.
Spot on. If I die, guess what? The government magically gets to keep all that I paid in, not my heirs. Stinkin’ scam.
How the f*** can we save for retirement when HALF of our paycheck goes to taxes!!??
SSN calculator
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/quickcalc
I added my pay and came up with this:
beginning at age 62 and 1 month it is $1,156.00
beginning at age 67 it is 1,799.00
beginning at age 70 it is $2,292.00
I have savings that hopefully will allow me a nice retirement. The stock I bought that has made a nice bundle for me is Nvidia - NVDA. You should buy. It will go up and up then split and you will have a nice retirement.
A whole heck of a lot of people have been thrown out of their areas of expertise and seniority due to trade policy, reduced to starting over again in midlife or later with mortgages, children and all the expenses that come with it. They’re barely holding it together and most don’t even have an emergency fund. Yet clueless people want to eliminate Social Security, the only hope of anything remotely approximating retirement for these millions of displaced workers? This is a political landmine and justifiably so. These people think they got suckered with the elimination of defined benefit pensions in favor of the 401(k) plans that have gyrated wildly and taken a dive as much as they’ve increased, and you’d have a tough time convincing them otherwise. Every civilized developed country in the world has a defined benefit pension plan, even little Chile who not too many decades ago was practically in civil war. Social Security is the closest thing to that, that we have. If you want to destroy the Trump era, start cutting or eliminating it. We’re talking political suicide.
Im with you on this one. I paid in to Social Security and Medicare for 50 years. If that money had gone into a bank savings account it would be worth much more. Also lets remember to thank Lyndon Johnson who moved SS monies into general revenue to pay for the Great Society scam.
Ditto
Semi-retired last Friday
This.. SS, like the medi.. programs, is just another wealth transfer from young to old and generally from less prosperous to more prosperous. The program will be impossible to change because people are generally “greedy” in that they vote their own interest first. The US population is aging and it will get worse, because we are now basically a democracy instead of a constitutional republic. People do and will continue to vote to steal money from others.
Since I will have to work for ever it seems, I look at collection SS as a tax break.
Absolutely. As well as all those tax dollars I paid in a category that is now exempted from having to pay.
Greedy you are nuts. You obviously havent read this thread or understand.
People are forced to pay into this stinking program for 40 to 50 years, are double taxed, earn next to nothing on their contributions, and have nothing for their heirs when they die. A thrifty person, investing prudently, could easily get three times the income stream in retirement that SS pays AND have millions for his or her heirs if he doesnt use his savings.
Please explain how getting viciously raped by your government and expecting to get back this paltry, amount is greedy.
Bkmk
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.