By crippling the economy for older, experienced workers (especially white Americans), they forced many during COVID to retire earlier than planned because they had little other choice.
but what is really killing senior citizens is two things...property tax and the fact that all that money you saved/invested in your retirement has become just another honey pot for the govt...you get taxed on any money you take out...
so here locally, you can get some kind of property tax break if you don't take in too much money and you're older....but if you need some money...new roof, car, health care etc...and take some retirement money out, your income looks greater and there goes the property tax relief....
you can not win....
Look up: privatized social security and Galveston, Texas
Look for the Forbes article. Many others to look at.
You could be making more then double what you get now.
The numbers are higher now as the articles below are almost 20 years old.
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.