LOL. You actually believe that? It might be what they tell you, but that money you paid in is gone - long gone - spent on bike paths, welfare payments, buying Viagra for inmates in prison, bridges to nowhere in Alaska, etc.
It is not an entitlement. It is an unfunded benefits program.
BTW, corporate pension funding used to be totally funded by the companies, but all that changed in the late 70s (or so), and, just like SS, there is no money “in a lockbox” for those juicy corporate pensions.
In my retirement planning, I am not even planning on getting any. If I do, great, if I don't, I view it simply as money stolen from me to be given to others in the many forms of government handouts.
I don't blame you (FrankR) for seeing it the way you do since that is all we ever hear. But the government has said (on its own website) the following: "...The fact that workers contribute to the Social Security program's funding through a dedicated payroll tax establishes a unique connection between those tax payments and future benefits. More so than general federal income taxes can be said to establish "rights" to certain government services. This is often expressed in the idea that Social Security benefits are "an earned right." This is true enough in a moral and political sense. But like all federal entitlement programs, Congress can change the rules regarding eligibility--and it has done so many times over the years..."
In reading this on the Social Security Administration's website, this means there is no guarantee of any kind you will ever see any of those tens of thousands of dollars (if not hundreds of thousands) you have put into the system during your life. They say the obligation is "true enough in a moral and political sense".
Think about that statement. Does that fill a thinking person with confidence? No, a thinking person understands that "a moral and political sense" and $4.50 will buy you a buck of Starbucks coffee, if that.
from occupied ga is completely correct. We are borrowing money from people who hate and despise us in order to pay out Social Security now, and the money that should have been used for those things was pissed away in the form of political goodies.
Make no mistake-we will see means testing for Social Security, and soon. And if you are one of the 48% (soon to be revised downwards again) of the patsies who pay taxes, guess what?
If you pay taxes, then that means you have "means" and will get a smaller and smaller piece of Social Security, eventually, none at all.
Mark my words.