Posted on 02/16/2024 10:05:40 AM PST by SeekAndFind
America’s declining Social Security program will be a contentious topic of debate for presidential candidates this year. Former president Donald Trump advocates leaving the program alone and has criticized Nikki Haley’s proposal to save the program by raising the retirement age. Similarly, President Biden has vehemently opposed any solutions that involve tampering with the program’s current structure.
Despite all this political posturing, Social Security is going broke fast as Americans are saving less for retirement than ever before. Half of all Baby Boomers in the U.S. have no personal retirement savings. Endless promises from both Republican and Democratic administrations over the last twenty years have been unable to reverse the system’s decline. Most objective estimates now suggest the program will likely be insolvent by the 2030s.
This is a raw deal for my generation. Studies from 2020 show only 38% of Zoomers believe they will benefit from Social Security. It seems to me that older generations want to borrow against ours and our children’s futures, while offering us no guarantee of ever seeing a penny from the system our money sustains. There’s a better way to ensure the long-term maintenance of the social security system, and it starts with privatization.
Though American policymakers balk at the word, especially within the context of Social Security, other nations that have successfully privatized retirement savings accounts could provide a model for how we might avert the imminent bankruptcy of our current system. For a clear picture of how such a scheme could operate, policymakers should look to Australia.
The Australian retirement system, better known as the “Superannuation Guarantee,” relies primarily on personal retirement accounts and employer contributions for funding.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The way it works is simple: Rather than the government taking a percentage of each check to be contributed to the Trust Fund, employers are required to make these deductions, and the employee then chooses from one of hundreds of providers to manage the funds.
This structure eliminates the problem of government mismanagement that has plagued the U.S. system. While the federal government claims allegations of raiding the Social Security Trust Fund are a myth, evidence suggests it has “borrowed” as much as $1.7 trillion from the fund in order to pay the tab for other efforts, everything from deficits to foreign adventurism.
“While the federal government claims allegations of raiding the Social Security Trust Fund are a myth, evidence suggests it has “borrowed” as much as $1.7 trillion from the fund in order to pay the tab for other efforts, everything from deficits to foreign adventurism.”
Semantics. There is no difference between stealing money and borrowing it with no intent of returning it.
It’s not going to go belly up. It’s just not going to bring in what it takes out. They will adjust when the time comes either by using federal funding, raising the cap or raising the age.
I was never a fan of conservative talk show host Phil Valentine but he had one standard line that was absolutely brilliant.
Government should only be entrusted to do what the private sector can’t, won’t or shouldn’t do for itself.
All you need do is look at the federal welfare program, where greater than 70% of taxes collected for that purpose are consumed by administrative costs, to understand that government sucks at managing money.
If my SS. contributions grew at the same rate as my 401k over the past 30 years, I would have a net worth almost 3 times higher. Putting the earners under age 30 contributions in a private account might be the solution, as seeing my retirement accounts are dominated by the earnings off very small amount of money invested before 30. 30 years the 60 year old will not even miss the benefits. They do not make enough today to change the status of the program for the next 10 years.
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SS funding is being used to buy votes for the Dem party and has been since at least the mid-1960s (War on Poverty)
SS money is being paid out - en mass - to people who never put a dime into the system (example - crazy checks) - all the downside to SS is directly tied to Democrats using it as a slush fund.
I find the names of things interesting. Super? annuation?
.https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/annuation
annuation
noun
an·nu·a·tion ˌanyəˈwāshən
plural-s
1
: annual variation in the presence or absence or the abundance of particular members of a plant community usually relatable to annual climatic variation
compare ASPECTION
2
: ecological observations made over a period of years
and don’t forget that word “guarantee” in the name.
This is just the tip of one huge and monumental crisis.
Medicare
Medicaid
$34 trillion in debt
Can someone please explain how we dig out of this hole without a collapse?
No wonder BRICS is growing like a weed.
Same old clap-trap been touted for decades.
Companies used to employe huge teams of MBA’s to build and maintain pensions. They couldn’t do it.
Now everyone is expected to do it themselves, and it is not working either.
Sad thing is that retirement has never been viable historically, and probably won’t be.
Social security is welfare.
We don’t need another bureaucracy to distribute it.
Get rid of the SSA.
Devolve welfare back to the states.
Means test recipients.
That will at least cover the neediest geezers.
Per the SSA, that’s 60,000 employees we can cut.
I’d call that a good start.
***Endless promises from both Republican and Democratic administrations over the last twenty years***
What they promised back in 1964...
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/usa1964-2.html
Self-Supporting
The program is designed so that contributions plus interest on the investments of the social security trust funds will be sufficient to meet all of the costs of benefits and administration, now and into the indefinite future—without any subsidy from the general funds of the Government. Both the Congress and the Executive Branch, regardless of political party in power, have scrupulously provided in advance for full financing of all liberalizations in the program.
****
The original SS program had you retire at 62. You were expected to die at 57 years.
Then came penicillin and threw the whole system out of whack.
At least with a private investment your account can be passed down to your heirs. SS stops when you pass. Plus you would also be able to collect your spouses account when they pass.
This entire article is deeply dumb.
Social Security is a tax.
Then it is a government expenditure based on whatever criteria Congress chooses or delegates to the Social Security Administration.
There is no “solvent”.
There is no “saving”.
That is accounting silliness.
Government can tax as it wishes and spend as it wishes and call the taxes Unicorns and the expenditures Unicorn excrement if it wishes.
Lower the income tax to a flat 1% and install The Fair Tax, the rate being negotiated every year. The 1% goes to a Roth IRA with no withdrawal until age 59. Allow unlimited IRA contributions tax free until a set amount is reached, say $300k.
Chile under Pinochet had a fella named Pinera who worked wonders for their system.
In 10 years the 1% tax can be eliminated.
On to health care. Put nurses in charge.
Galveston County: A Model for Social Security Reform - 2005
https://www.ncpathinktank.org/pdfs/ba514.pdf
FTA: We’ve averaged an annual rate of return of
about 6.5 percent over 24 year
Workers making $17,000 a year are expected to receive about 50 percent more per month on our alternative plan than on Social Security - $1,036 instead of $683. [See the Figure.]
Workers making $26,000 a year will make almost double Social Security’s return - $1,500 instead of $853.
Workers making $51,000 a year will get $3,103 instead of $1,368.
Workers making $75,000 or more will nearly triple Social Security - $4,540 instead of $1,645.
Galveston County’s survivorship benefits pay four times a worker’s annual salary - a minimum of $75,000 to a maximum $215,000 - versus Social Security, which forces widows to wait until age 60 to qualify for benefits, or provides 75 percent of a worker’s salary for school-age children.
In Galveston, if the worker dies before retirement, the survivors receive not only the full survivorship but get generous accidental death benefits, too. Galveston County’s disability benefit also pays more: 60 percent of an individual’s salary, better than Social Security’s.
_________________________________________
How Three Texas Counties Created Personal Social Security Accounts and Prospered - 2011
https://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2011/05/12/how-three-texas-counties-created-personal-social-security-accounts-and-prospered/?sh=5ac504623283
A lower-middle income worker making about $26,000 at retirement would get about $1,007 a month under Social Security, but $1,826 under the Alternate Plan, according to First Financial’s calculations.
A middle-income worker making $51,200 would get about $1,540 monthly from Social Security, but $3,600 from the banking model.
And a high-income worker who maxed out on his Social Security contribution every year would receive about $2,500 a month from Social Security vs. $5,000 to $6,000 a month from the Alternate Plan.
Sounds like a good idea. A county government can do that-am I right? If a private company does it(no SSI) the feds will shut it down.
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