Hot Topic: Social Security

[user 25174]

The topic is publicly announced proposals to modify social security or medicare. The proposals by the GOP seem designed to adversely affect benefits. The facts are the facts; present other facts (e.g. GOP proposals) if they exist.

Indeed facts are facts.
However in this time of "if you don't agree/vote/use my pronoun(s)..then you're a .."
All things considered, facts have been, and are manipulated to fit the day it would seem.
Again
I am a recipient of Social Security
I am also considered disabled physically.
Like too many others, find it difficult to manage the few things necessary, much less enjoyable in life.
I am also an Independant voter with no agenda here.
I do take the time to look into what - might affect my lifestyle .. be that as it may.
Here is just one of many facts that are facts ..
https://www.politifact.com/factchec...hnson-has-not-endorsed-plan-phase-out-social/

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Many of us depend on the SSI we paid for. The point being, WE PAID FOR IT..... any talk of taking this away is theft.

The money we paid in plus interest will be gone in 14 years. After that SS has to take money from someone else to pay us - and that is a pyramid scheme.

The threats to shut down the government is what bullies do to get their way.

Like what unions do to get their way.

I have seen no honorable reasons to eliminate the SSI system.

It's a pyramid scheme and pyramid schemes eventually collapse. Gen X is smaller than Boomers, Gen Y is smaller than Gen X, Gen Z is smaller than Gen Y, Gen Alpha is smaller yet; the top gets bigger and the base continually gets smaller until it collapses.

The claims of bankruptcy are based on lies and misinformation. The problem could easily be solved,

Please share the correct information and analysis that refutes the OASDI report.
And I'd like to hear your ideas on solving the problem.

One of the problems is the SS system has been poorly managed.
Example:

Official 2022 inflation = ~8%, although food and gas are much higher.​

SS adjustment for 2023 = ~8.7%​

Current Treasury Bill interest rate = 3.5%​

The 'lock box' is losing to inflation every month.

 

[user 22017]

The money we paid in plus interest will be gone in 14 years. After that SS has to take money from someone else to pay us - and that is a pyramid scheme.


Like what unions do to get their way.


It's a pyramid scheme and pyramid schemes eventually collapse.

It is not a pyramid scheme and striking (work stoppages) are the only recourse unions have. Without unions and strikes, workers are at the mercy of profit seeking owners. Unions are why we have limited protections, and sometimes benefits, today.

 

[KarlH]

It is not a pyramid scheme

Given the generational statistics, perhaps we should call it a Space Needle scheme..?

 

[towboater]

I'm not against this in theory, but there would have to be iron-clad arrangements in place that if you frittered away your "personal acct" via poor financial mgmt or bad/speculative investments, that you absolutely couldn't come crying to the rest of us taxpayers to bail you out.

This does not address the issue of the wealthy opting out of paying their fair share of taxes, of course.

I don’t know but a 4.3% loss is better than my 35% loss on my personal accounts (401K).

SS is the worst "investment" anyone can ever do. You are forced to pay into a program that will lose 4.3% over time and after all the years of paying into it, when you die it all goes back to the folks that waste it the best. Wish we could opp out and have a personal account. It will grow and when you pass, you can give it to others, not Uncle Sam. No party will stop it but having a plan to replace it over time would be in the best interest of all. A bit over 47% don't even pay taxes so it won't stand on it's own forever. Get yours while you can and enjoy today

A 4.3% loss sounds a little better than my 35% loss on my personal accounts (401K) in the last year and a half. But what the hell do I know?

 

[RvNaut]

But what the hell do I know?

Enough to know that the drive to get rid of SSI is not good for Americans, and serves only those with greed in their hearts.

 

[rruff]

SS is the worst "investment" anyone can ever do.

It was actually a great deal until recently. People tended to get a lot more than they paid, adjusted for present value and inflation.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

It is not a pyramid scheme .....

Then what would you call it? Workers coming in on the bottom pay in so retirees at the top get paid. Age ordered pyramid that is top heavy (unstable).

and striking (work stoppages) are the only recourse unions have. Without unions and strikes, workers are at the mercy of profit seeking owners.

Same in government. Sometimes only way to avoid the tyranny of the majority. Both parties have used it.

.....
A 4.3% loss sounds a little better than my 35% loss on my personal accounts (401K) in the last year and a half. But what the hell do I know?

I took a hit in my 401K last two years also. BUT I have averaged 8% per year for the last 30 years so I am still way ahead of where Treasury Bills would yield (they seldom are better than inflation).

Enough to know that the drive to get rid of SSI is not good for Americans, and serves only those with greed in their hearts.

Depends on what replaces it. SS is a major impediment for working poor to create generational wealth (they die before exhausting their contribution).

It was actually a great deal until recently. People tended to get a lot more than they paid .....

One reason why SS is in trouble. They didn't take out enough when we were working.

 

[bullfrog]

Seems to me the funds that were put in and the money they made were mismanaged. If large Wall Street institutions were able to create large corporations which used monopolies to funnel most of the middle class’s and lower class’s money as well as the government’s as they are a huge consumer to the upper 1% or so the government should have been able to make enough money in taxes to insure every citizen beyond working age had their basic needs met. I keep trying to understand how Social Security, Medicare and Social Service programs cost could come anywhere near what we over pay in defense costs and foreign aid. The vaccine we paid to develop by paying $25 for a shot that cost $2 to produce will probably cost over $100 in the commercial market even with more than one producer. That ain’t capitalism that’s a monopoly. Just one example of how our government has lost control of big money corporations seems to me. Seems to me when corporations gouge consumers through monopolies they should be fined or taxed to pay those they illegally profited from.

 

[rruff]

Seems to me the funds that were put in and the money they made were mismanaged.

The federal government just prints money. This is not without consequences (exchange rate, inflation). But fiat currency gives them a lot of "freedom" to do things like print several trillion $$$ during the pandemic, and toss most of it in places where it wasn't needed. That was some serious mismanagement!

Of course they can afford SS, which people who paid in are entitled to get. I doubt many politicians care so little about senior votes that they will do something silly like cut benefits.

 

[bullfrog]

^^^It seems a lot of politicians got voted in that are willing to manipulate Social Security to where the money goes in their pockets and those that paid to get them in office.

 

[SLB_SA]

Some people may wish to put their own political spins on social security and medicare. I don't care as much about the political factions as I do about the effects of benefit cuts (now or in the future) on millions of people. If the GOP came out with a plan to strengthen social security and it honestly did this, I might be a huge supporter of the plan. Millions of people depend on social security to survive and stay out of poverty; in comparison with this, scoring political points is almost criminal. Can the federal government afford to pay social security benefits at their current levels? Of course it can, just like it can afford to pay for the military, the VA, food and drug safety, the FAA, etc. Federal treasury bond yields (and so the cost of deficits to the government) have been lower because trillions of dollars of FICA taxes have gone into buying treasury bonds. Has the military reduced the cost of government or paid money into the system? Has Boeing paid for the services the FAA provides? Social security and medicare are promises from the federal government, just as national security, food standards, drug standards, air & water quality standards, safe roads, safe air travel, etc. are promises to the people by the government; the federal government prints the money and, in an economic crisis, the world looks to the USD as the safe haven.
"Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015" Reduced Options
"Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984" link "Before 1984, Social Security benefits were exempt from the federal income tax. Congress passed legislation in 1983 to tax a portion of Social Security and Railroad Retirement Tier I benefits, with the share of benefits subject to taxation gradually increasing as a person’s income rose above a specified income threshold. In 1993, a second income threshold was added that increased the taxable share of benefits. These two thresholds are often referred to as first tier and second tier."
**These tiers have never been raised since 1983 in spite of inflation; for a single person, the first tier is $25,000 and the second tier is $34,000.

 

[SLB_SA]

Bernie Sanders addresses Social Security

 

[egilbe]

Then what would you call it? Workers coming in on the bottom pay in so retirees at the top get paid. Age ordered pyramid that is top heavy (unstable).

Same in government. Sometimes only way to avoid the tyranny of the majority. Both parties have used it.

I took a hit in my 401K last two years also. BUT I have averaged 8% per year for the last 30 years so I am still way ahead of where Treasury Bills would yield (they seldom are better than inflation).

Depends on what replaces it. SS is a major impediment for working poor to create generational wealth (they die before exhausting their contribution).

One reason why SS is in trouble. They didn't take out enough when we were working.

Social Security was never meant to create generational wealth. It was meant to keep grandma from starving to death or preventing her from subsisting on cat food. The bar to generational wealth is the sociopaths who crave power for their own self-serving interests. It's why as a Republican, I approve of Unions, the right to strike and protest, the right of sedition, treason and rebellion. There is nothing more American than overthrowing a non-responsive government. We are almost at that point where it needs to be burned down and start all over.

Taxing the poor to fund social security is not how you prevent grandma from starving to death. You tax the wealthy whose schemes put her in that position to begin with. Remove the cap would solve the problem. Noblesse oblige.

 

[BlueMarkOhio]

Then what would you call it? Workers coming in on the bottom pay in so retirees at the top get paid. Age ordered pyramid that is top heavy (unstable).

I would call it insurance with a retirement benefit.

Its actual name is: Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI).

It works exactly the same way that private insurance works, except more soundly funded.

 

[Zerpersande]

It's why as a Republican, I approve of Unions, the right to strike and protest, the right of sedition, treason and rebellion. There is nothing more American than overthrowing a non-responsive government.

Until recentlybI never thought of Rpublicans as supporting sedition. I’ve always viewed them as religious and pro-big business.

Remove the (tax?) cap would solve the problem.

Now it’s sounds like platform of Sanders.

 

[mpruet]

I don’t know what the complaints are about. I’m retired and in fairly good health. I just calculated that I received the money that I and my employer put into the program after seven years of drawing SS. Of course if I adjusted my payments for inflation, it’d be more like 12 years. Have the complainers actually compared their payments into SS with what they are receiving?

 

[RvNaut]

Why is removing or raising the cap a bad idea.... is there anyone, anyone at all, participating here that makes more than $140k a year?

Why is there not any suggestions of how to fix it, but instead the talk is of dismantling it all together.... for what reason?

 

[Zerpersande]

I don’t know what the complaints are about. I’m retired and in fairly good health. I just calculated that I received the money that I and my employer put into the program after seven years of drawing SS. Of course if I adjusted my payments for inflation, it’d be more like 12 years. Have the complainers actually compared their payments into SS with what they are receiving?

I’m drawing about $1000 per month. But I have to keep in mind that I have been living in a foreign country for the past 30 years so that figure is naturally going to be low because I didn’t put in to the system for that period of time. However I work for companies here for about 10 of those 30 years and for that short of a period of time I’m getting about $450 a month. Personally, I think both systems are working reasonably well. Both systems can benefit by making sure that everybody puts in the amount of money that they should. A lot of politicians here in Japan got caught, not contributing the proper amount to the system And I’m sure it happens in the United States too.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Social Security was never meant to create generational wealth .....

What I said is SS as currently set up makes it difficult or impossible for the working poor to create wealth. So grandma doesn't have any additional savings to fall back on and can only rely on SS.

I would call it insurance with a retirement benefit.
Its actual name is: Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI).
It works exactly the same way that private insurance works, except more soundly funded.

It's still a pyramid scheme: you are taking money from people on the bottom (workers) and paying it out to people on top (retirees). And hoping that when the people on the bottom get to the top there are enough new people to keep the scheme going, otherwise it collapses.

Insurance companies are solvent, SS is running out of money.
I did a quick calculation: Last year (2022) I received $2.32 for every $1.00 me and my employer paid into SS in my highest earning year.

Why is removing or raising the cap a bad idea.... is there anyone, anyone at all, participating here that makes more than $140k a year?

Why is there not any suggestions of how to fix it, but instead the talk is of dismantling it all together.... for what reason?

I for one think that eliminating the cap should have been done a long time ago.

Because defining a fix requires people skilled in actuary science and statistics.
I haven't seen anyone on here advocating dismantling SS. But if nothing is done benefits will have to be reduced sometime in the next 14 years.