NO. Everyone who is currently getting or scheduled to get benefits, lets say everyone over 40, still gets their full benefits. From Social Security, which I know is not an individual retirement account.
Me, as in I, understand that after getting back my own 7.65% back from the government which I have contributed over the last 18 years do hearby renounce any future claim to receive any money from Social Security.
Future employer contributions still go to Social Security to pay benefits to current and future recipients, like I said, those over 40. No ones benefits are being cut. As recipients die, the need for my employers 7.65% will be reduced, because there are no new recipients. As the trust fund shows a surplus, because employers are still contributing, we can reduce the percentage going into Soc Sec and put the rest into the individual plans.
No ones benefits are being cut. The higher returns in individual accounts raises the average return that retirees get. The only loser is the government which doesn't get to waste as much of my retirement savings.
I hope it's clear to you that its clear to me that Social Security is not an individual retirement account. It is clear to both of us that it has been a transfer between generations. It should also be clear to both of us that it cannot continue as is without huge tax increases, benefit cuts or both. That's what I'm trying to avoid with my suggestion.
As I've said, to continue we need reduced benefits, increased taxes and/or needs based benefits. Proposals along these lines modify but keep SS and its purpose.
Your "suggestion" does not modify SS. It rejects it (after continuing it for people over 40 or some such cutoff). You replace SS with an individual retirement plan. Now, rather than a system that directs money from workers to non-workers you have people saving money for their own retirement and passing it to their heirs if they don't need it. Rather than a new system to achieve an old goal you've scrapped a system with one goal and instituted another system with an entirely different goal. If you said that's what you want to do, I'd just say I disagree completely. But, instead, you keep putting it forth as a new approach to the same issue.