So they take money away from me to help pay for the financially irresponsible and to give to thoes who arent as lucky as I am with the promise to pay me back with a profit of 0%? Sounds like a violation of the 5th amendment to me. An American should have the right to pay for his own retirement and pave his own way through life. He should not have money forced from him because someone else isnt responsible or wealthy! If I want an insurance policy on feeding myself I should have the oppertunity to ask for it! Insurence is for the "incase sh*t happens in life". I shouldent be punished because of "incase someone else cant feed themselves". I should not be forced to pay for insurance that doesent cover losses that I create on others! And if I do starve without insurance other people should not be forced to pay for it against their own free will!

Well if you are disabled early in life... it's a lot less than that.

In some ways I think that's where social security is screwed up. The people who most need it ("need" is the point of a safety net) get barely enough to live, probably not enough without other government subsidies.
But middle classers that squander all may get enough to live above the poverty level.

It seems to me it would be better if we quit acting like it's about "investment" or maintaining a certain quality of life... and just come up with one fair income.
Treat it like any other program. People who earn more and thus pay more taxes don't get more welfare benefits, do they? No. That would kill the point.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

True, although if you're disabled there's a special disability benefit, plus other assistance.

It's based on income. What can you do? I don't mind that aspect so much, as long as the minimum benefit is large enough to actually *be* a safety net. I think it's a necessary part of building political support for the program. Wealthier people wouldn't support paying more for the same benefit, and if everyone got the same tiny benefit it wouldn't be big enough to appeal to wealthier taxpayers.

There's a reason fewer people hate SS than hate straight welfare.

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Man up.

It's really tiny. You wouldn't believe how tiny.
Medicare is awesome though.
If I had to take care of my mother, I could squeeze social security (albeit give up much of my own retirement possibility- that's one of the other BIG benefits of ss)... but there is no way in hell I could cover the medical.



But I hear complaints all the time from well-to-do people (this is a pet peeve of my in-laws, in fact) about the idiots that are having their dumb spending habits subsidized. To their point of view it looks like social security is an incentive not to save (I find flaw in that... since a person would still be better off if they invested and saved, but still...).

I'd imagine as the whole "I am independent in the age of the internet an d 401ks" culture starts to grow, we'll see more this sentiment.
I think it does undermine the program.

Sure, people that don't save out of stupidity still deserve to live after retirement... but why is it assumed they shouldn't have to sell their house?

I understand the middle class approval is necessary for anything... but doesn't anyone even try to ask them to be reasonable? They really aren't the people who need help.
I actually find it almost ridiculous that welfare is considered so terrible while social security is loved...
And what it comes down to is that middle class people think it's an investment! They think they are entitled to what they paid in, more if necessary (and the middle class outlive the poor most of the time).

What gives social security is its support is exactly what gives the "get rid of it" people theirs!

Who loses?
The people who need social security... those who investments wind up not helping!!!

See... The means really do shape the ends!

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

Trouble is there are free riders right now. There's a portion of our population that currently receives a tax return greater than the amount they paid in during the course of the year. So they're basically reaping the benefits of from those of us who've will/can work for a living.


I totally disagree with you here my friend. If the congress had put that social security money into ANY type of saving or investment fund they could have actually made a great enough return to shoulder the burden of population fluctuations. But in the grand traditions of mismanagement the government "redirects" these funds to "current projects" (read: pork). If they don't get control of their spending the fund can and likely will go belly up... well that is unless we keep raising the taxes on the top 50% to pay for it

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Are you talking about the Earned Income Credit? And if so, what does that have to do with Social Security?

From the very beginning, current workers paid for current retirees. It wasn't a matter of investing savings or the like.

Over the years we built up a surplus, thanks to the baby boomers; but that was a demographic fluke, and now the loan is being called.

Why didn't we invest that surplus? Two excellent reasons.

1. Risk. If you don't trust the government to do basic stuff, why would you trust it to invest your money wisely?

2. Influence. Why would you want the government having control over a trillion-dollar retirement fund -- enough money to manipulate the equity markets?

But the main reason is that current workers paid for the benefits of current retirees. It wasn't conceived as an investment model.

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Man up.

According to the NTFU, the bottom 50% of income earners in our country contributed less than 4% of the total tax bill... so lets crunch some quick numbers here.

300mil*.5=150mil
~$934mil was paid in/150m = $6.26 per person...

Of course it doesn't really work out that way because those who are closer to the 50% mark pay the plurality of this and those who are below the 35% mark basically file a return and get a check regardless of the amount and portion they've paid in.



There's no risk in basic savings, there's no risk in CD's, there's virtually no risk in money market accounts. A monkey with a driver's liscense could do these types of simple investments with little or no risk, something I could have done with my money, had I not been compelled by law to pay in.

Umm, I don't. I thought we went over that part already =P

Ok so maybe mismanagement is a misnomer. It was basically dysfunctional from the start.

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I still don't understand what this has to do with Social Security. Benefits are based on income and contributions. If you make hardly any money, you'll get a much smaller benefit. If you report no income subject to SS tax, you get no benefit.

Here's a benefits calculator. Try it out:
http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/benefit6.cgi

If you report $2000 or less in income subject to SS a year, you won't see any SS benefits.

$5,000 gets you an SS benefit of $463 (in current dollars).

If I make $80,000, then when I retire my benefit will be $2,652.

The risk in question is why SS is an insurance program, not an investment program.

With your savings or investments, the money can run out. With SS, the benefits never run out. They last as long as you live -- and sometimes longer, with survivor and dependent benefits. Regardless of how much money you paid in.

To make a putative $1 million IRA last 30 years, you could take out no more than $33,333 a year (ignoring interest accrual to keep the math simple). And if you lived more than 30 years past retirement, you'd be broke.

Since SS pays out over average lifespan (7 years after retirement, currently), it could pay out $142,000 or so a year -- and keep doing so as long as you lived.

The only downside to SS is that if you die early, your heirs don't get the balance of whatever you paid in. But that, again, springs from SS being an insurance program, not an investment program.

I've got a 20-year term life insurance policy. If I fail to die during that 20-year term, tough: I get no payout and I don't get any of my premiums back. What I'm buying is lessened risk. In the case of life insurance, I'm eliminating the risk that if I die my family will be impoverished. In the case of SS, you're eliminating the risk of running out of money in retirement.

It had to work that way from the start. The goal was to help the elderly living in poverty right then, not simply help future elderly.

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Man up.