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All we need to do is get rid of the cap on income and it would immediately have more money than we need.
If someone makes more than the cap, they can afford to keep paying it
But that means the well off would be paying in; not just the poor.
What is this some sort of socialist financial security plan?
I'm making enough now that I hit the cap, and I'm annoyed by it. I don't need social security, but the less fortunate do. It's so backwards. I should be paying more into it.
Billionaires should be putting millions into SS every year. It’s outrageous that that’s not happening.
Fuck that.
I never wanted to pay a dime of it, because even as a teen with a shitty starter job I was paying into a system I knew was going to go broke before I got to draw anything from it. Now I work two jobs just to contribute to my retirement so that maybe I'll get a few good years at the end, and bow they want to make sure that no matter how much I make, I have to keep paying? Get fucked (the system, not you in particular).
How about we set a floor, below which you don't need to pay for social security. I don't know what number makes sense, lets just call it $500k/yr. Then all the rich assholes who don't need it can pay for the people they're fucking over.
While we're at it, take social security out of dividend payouts and stock sales above some yearly threshold too, take some back from the dicks who don't actually have "income" because they get paid in stock.
At the very least they could take the damn cap off it.
Right now it's almost like the opposite of your suggestion.
Hah, yeah. Honestly, fuck it, yeah, take the cap off. I'm still getting fucked, but at least the generation before me and my less fortunate peers would be less fucked.
And maybe my idea was wrong-headed... if they took the cap off, and I ended up paying more as I got paid more, it would still be better because at leat it would be around when I was old.
I don't remember the payouts being super awesome though. Ugh, I don't know. I think I'm fucked either way.
if they took the cap off, and I ended up paying more
The cap is $168,600.
You're not a rich individual on a bad day. You're working two jobs. You're fucking poor, just like almost all the rest of us.
Class is what we've all in common.
Not gonna lie first part of the post I'm like this guy is am asshole but reading the entire post you've got some great ideas
Haha, thanks. In fairness, I am kind of an asshole, but I believe in social security. I've paid into it for over 20 years now, and not even my parents (who also paid into it for decades) will benefit from it. Angrys up the blood.
I'm working my ass off because - never mind my own retirement - the people who raised me are going to need a ton of my help, and I'm like... we all paid into it... why? It was supposed to be "you pay in for people now, and we'll take care of you later". I'm glad other people got my money all this time, but they fucking forgot that second part, man.
Wild idea, how about taking care of the trust funds instead of paying for bombs for Israel?
My thoughts exactly. Somehow, year after year, we can always come up with $800B+ for the offense budget ($842B FY2024) and that never gets seriously questioned, despite the US not being technically at war with any other major or minor powers. The offense budget is always a "must pass" proposition, whereas spending that actually helps Americans, like Medicare, Medicaid, and SS, are treated/portrayed as some sort of obscene "entitlements" that only the most profligate and immoral nations would ever direct tax money to. Those, and any kind of non-military infrastructure, are just examples of coddling the undeserving citizenry. Investing in the means to kill "foreigners", in contrast, is money well spent!
The whole "standing army" paradigm needs to be scrapped and the sooner the better.
On the flip side, the DoD is the biggest socialist organization in the government and employs literally millions of Americans. And while the US isn't at war, they have a lot of international allies that they support and prop up. (that being said, the defense budget is pretty obscene. And the support of Israel is maybe not the best way to spend it.)
Yes, the Department of Offense IS a socialist organization. But the fact that it has to do with offense and killing and 'projecting power' and bribing 'friendlies' with money and weapons while scaring 'unfriendlies' with the same, does not whitewash it into acceptability. We could, and should, take that roughly $850B/yr and plow it into domestic infrastructure, public R&D (no patents or other encumbrances), education, public health care, social supports (such as Medicare/SS), the Arts, basic research, the sciences (climate, space, etc), public housing and clean energy generation to name a few things. We could do all this if it weren't for the fact that in the US the only acceptable form of public spending is public spending on weapons of war, on the means of bullying and killing those who we don't like or who won't cooperate with us. By all means, we should keep up the socialist spending, but it should be directed in such a way as to improve the lives of the citizens directly, not just as hypothetical trickle-down improvements from making ever more deadly and expensive killing technologies.
Just a few hours from me is the Grand Coulee Dam, built in the 1930s and one of the Wonders of the World. There's no reason that we couldn't be engaged on projects of this scope and size all the time, but nope, that's evil socialism, and big government-funded projects are only acceptable in America if they directly have to do with providing us with new or better weapons to wield against Those People (foreigners mainly).
When does the military get a go-broke date?
Hmm. 2036. It’s 2024 now. I’m 47… :: counts on fingers and toes :: Nope, still not going to help.
People dying faster does save Social Security money, but Is it good news in the scheme of things? Hmm.
(Despite saying "video" there is a transcript).
Covid musta helped some here...
The average person makes 65k
Social security is 12.4%
Medicare is 2.9%
Social Security is 8.19k
Medicare is 1.885k
Average person pays 10k a year to SS and Medicare.
Retirement age is 67
Start work at 18, 49 years of work.
S&P500 has returned an average of 10.64% apr for the last 100 years. 16.5% last 5 years.
30-year morgage is ~7.5%
Let's just assume the person could put extra money towards their mortgage, gaining 7.5% apr.
10k/12= 833.33 per month
833.33 a month at 7.5% apr for 30 years is 1.02M
833.33 a month at 10% apr for 49 years is 10.41M
Government takes 1-10M from the average American retirement account to give them SS and Medicare.
Let's say you live until 80. Average life expectancy is ~77.5. Means you have 13 years in retirement.
Average SS payment is 1,864.52 a month. 22,374.24 a year.
13 years of 22,374.24 is 290,865.12.
Average person is losing 750k-9.75M for retirement.
Medicare is a whole other beast but unless you're going to pay 750k+ on medical expenses in retirement, it's not going to benefit you.
Even with Medicare you have to pay premiums, deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance. So it's not like it's all covered for "free".
SS is a government ran ponzi scheme. Anyone else doing it would be a crooked investor.
I get that minimum wage is $7.25 and that's 15k a year. They are paying 2k a year for SS. They will most likely benefit from the system.
But the average American shouldn't be footing so much of the bill and not seeing any benefits.
It's crazy
You're simply describing the skewed tax burden placed upon the middle and lower classes. Rich people should be paying more. Social security isn't an investment fund and shouldn't be an investment fund.
We administer retirement, disability, survivor, and family benefits, and enroll individuals in Medicare.
Social Security provides retirement income for almost every American worker.
Ssa.gov
An investment fund is a supply of capital belonging to numerous investors, used to collectively purchase securities, while each investor retains ownership and control of their own shares.
Investopedia.com
The only thing not making it an investment fund is that the government forcefully takes the money and you don't own the money after it is taken.
The average person gets the majority of their retirement income from SS.
Ask the average person what SS is. They will say that it is a retirement fund. What is a retirement fund? An investment fund.
Social insurance, as conceived by President Roosevelt, would address the permanent problem of economic security for the elderly by creating a work-related, contributory system in which workers would provide for their own future economic security through taxes paid while employed.
Ssa.gov
Ask the average person what SS is. They will say that it is a retirement fund. What is a retirement fund? An investment fund.
Sorry but asking random people what something is might make for funny late night TV but it's not how you define things.
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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