I started working when I was 16 and the first time I realized what FICA was I thought there should be a better way of providing pensions. However, since that time in 1962 a lot has changed. When I started working there were only Defined Benefit plans which were not portable, and if you were not vested when you left there was nothing to take with you.
Now my daughters have 401K and/or other types of programs that I wish had had when I started out.
SS is only a supplement, and all of you youngsters out there should take advantage of maxing your 401K or IRAs so you don't have to rely on SS.
Take my advice or leave it, but don't complain about it. Believe me you have it better now with the options available to you which we baby boomers did not have right away.
And I'm all for the personal account business
Well SAID!!!!
We do have more options granted, but we also have a multi-trillion dollar debt hanging over our heads which will be impossible to pay.
I’m saving and investing around 20% of my income, and have been doing so for almost ten years. My assumption is that SS and Medicare are going to be radically reduced in the coming years - best case. In the worst case they’re going to cause a horrific financial crash.
Now my daughters have 401K and/or other types of programs that I wish had had when I started out.
Yes and yes.
I had a conversation with someone about social security, and when I pointed out that it was simply “social security” - when enacted, designed to keep starving seniors from living under bridges, he was quite incensed. He seemed to think it was a full blown retirement program. I mean c’mon, 1000 bucks a month?
Nowadays it’s de rigeur to get on disability at an early age, or the children. I have a distant relative that seems to be hell bent on getting her entirely normal kids diagnosed with the latest malady de jour, along with drugging them up. It’s pretty twisted.
At least when envisioned, it was considered to be a “third leg” of the recipients’ other two - savings, and employer retirement program, typically a defined benefit pension. The latter are rare as hens’ teeth these days.