Social Security Calculator

Human Events Online ^ | 2-5-05 | Chris Field

[FlyLow]

Considering all the debate going on about Social Security reform, particularly personal retirement accounts (PRAs), I figured that you all might be interested in a new tool created by the good folks at The Heritage Foundation. They have a newly revamped Social Security Calculator where you can figure out how much you could benefit from the creation of PRAs, how much the current system (if left unchanged) will cost you, and much more. Check it out here: http://www.heritage.org/research/features/socialsecurity/

[kellynla]

If they raise the cap on SS then the whole problem is eliminated. I believe it's 90K now. And they could probably lower the rate if they did that.

[knowtherules]

No society has ever been taxed into prosperity.

[TADSLOS]

Pretty telling calculator. I just sent it to all my friends and family. The more I think about how much of my income has been siphoned away without my consent, or at least giving me the option on how to invest it, the more pissed off I get.

[glockmeister40]

I'm wondering how badly people 40-55 years old will be hurt in Bush's plan. He said those over 55 will be left alone. Under 55, your benefits will be cut.

[kabar]

If they raise the cap on SS then the whole problem is eliminated. I believe it's 90K now. And they could probably lower the rate if they did that.

No way. Besides the fact that enough revenue could not be raised even if you removed the cap, you would also have to increase the benefits based on these increased contributions. The cap goes up every year so eventually almost everyone will be making contributions.

SS is a Ponzi scheme. Check out these links to understand the magnitude of the problem:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/SocialSecurity/BG1176.cfm

http://www.socialsecurity.org/

[stopem]

I agree! The calculators are all different depending on the agenda of the group who place the calculator for use. I have seen different figures some meant to inflame.

SS is NOT just for retirees they forget its for dependent children and for disability beneficiaries yet all they talk about is the retiree portion? Maybe they should address the portion that is a major part of the deficit problem! Maybe they need to see if people are collecting for disability who no longer should be collecting,(like the ones collecting because they were drug addicts!) I knew of a friends son who was a addict and stayed collecting SSI long after he came out of rehab. That is were the massive waste is and needs to be addressed!

[in the Arena]

He said those over 55 will be left alone. Under 55, your benefits will be cut.

When did he say that ?

[kellynla]

you mean to tell me that if everyone who makes over 90K continued to pay into SS that that wouldn't fund SS...
ya better check the figures again. LOL

[woofer]

As I can see by your Nom de guerre that you are astute, well-educated and a considerate person of thought.

No society has ever been taxed into prosperity< While that's a true statement, FICA are termed a "contribution".

Also, there is a little known fact that anyone can opt out of the Social Security program simply by writing a letter to the SSA, the IRS and their employer. The way I figured it, if my buddy can work his entire career at a state job, retire at fifty years of age with a pension and full benefit paid for by the taxpayers of that state and then get a private sector job and work it for six months to qualify for social security at sixty-two, then I can scam the system by opting out at fifty, having qualified for maximum SS benefit from "contributions made over 35 years.

[glockmeister40]

He said it by saying if you are 55 and older, your benefits will stay the same. If you are under 55, you will definitely be taking a hit. In this age bracket, even if you can get into a pra, you will still be losing. Under 40 and you're pra will be able to make up for it.

Even it I took early retirement at 62 and got $900 per month, that means I would be commanding an ss account worth approx $270,000 (at 4% intr). It would be difficult for me to save 270k between now and age 62, above and beyond my maxed out 401k. I would be loosing.

My strategy is 1/3 retirement income from ss, 2/3 from 401k.

[Fredgoblu]

I'm wondering how badly people 40-55 years old will be hurt in Bush's plan.

Well...for several years now, this 41 year old has been anticipating a SS return of -1%. I'm not sure how I could be hurt by a system that gives me the opportunity of positive returns.

Heck, I'd do better than SS just stuffing my premiums in a mattress!

[P.O.E.]

like the ones collecting because they were drug addicts

Bingo. And don't think all these obesity lawsuits aren't targeting a piece of the SS disability pie.

[pageonetoo]

that's right...just tax the hell out of the earners, so that it can be given to someone else who didn't do as well, or plan ahead. Wait, isn't that what socialists do?

...The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigor in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former exoduses of nations and crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

- communist manifesto, 1848

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html>

[pageonetoo]

buy low, sell high...

[sitetest]

Dear glockmeister40,

Folks can decline to opt in to the new program, and receive their benefits under the current system.


sitetest

[kellynla]

It was just a thought...
no need in getting your knickers in a knot! LOL
if you have another suggestion, make it...
I am certainly not planning my retirement around SS.

[stopem]

Bush's program only benefits those under 55. This program would get more support if it was a program that was not costing trillions to implement and the way to do that would be to take out more in contributions for those who opt in to this "savings"program that way the 55 and over crowd wouldnt have to subsidize the TRILLIONS in taxpayers money that it will take to pay for this program.

No one has talked about the trillions it will cost and the taxpayers money to subsidize this program and if you say it wont cost the taxpayers thats foolish because in the long run if he borrows the money than the children and grandchildren will have to pay for it. Otherwise how is the money going to be repaid?

He talked about wanting to secure something for our children and grandchildren well raising the deficit by TRILLIONS will be leaving one heck of a legacy to those children and grandchildren wont it? And dont pull the spoken-like-a-liberal card because conservatives do not want their taxes raised to support a program costing that kind of money, nor do conservatives want spending out of control or larger government of which this program is! Additional contributions by those who will benefit is the fair way to go and than it will not cost trillions to implement.

[jackbill]

If they raise the cap on SS then the whole problem is eliminated. I believe it's 90K now. And they could probably lower the rate if they did that.

Have you considered the impact on the economy of doing that? It would be the largest tax increase in history.

Would you increase the benefits for those who would have to pay FICA on, say, $150,000 or $250,000 income? Or are you just in favor of changing SS to just another welfare program where the upper middle class picks up the tab?

Do you believe that those in that bracket would just sit there and take it? Or would they work a deal whereby they quit their job, set up a sub-chapter S corp, sub-contract to their former employer, take a $30,000 salary (pay FICA on it) and the rest in dividends, the latter not being subject to FICA?

[RipSawyer]

There are people collecting disability and working, I know of some. On the other hand there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, who have serious cronic illness and cannot find employment because of their illness but cannot draw social secutity disability either, my wife is one of these. The program seems to be administered based on whether a person qualifies for welfare, supposedly if you have paid the tax and your doctors say that you cannot work you are entitled to draw disability but the reality is far different.