How Three Texas Counties Created Personal Social Security Accounts and Prospered Page 2: Part of the employer contribution in the Alternate Plan goes toward a term life insurance policy, which pays four times the employees salary tax free, up to a maximum of $215,000. Thats nearly 850 times Social Securitys death benefit.
More importantly, if a worker participating in Social Security dies before retirement, he loses his contribution (though part of that money might go to surviving children, if any, or a spouse who didnt work and therefore didnt establish his or her own benefits). But a worker in the Alternate Plan owns his account, so the entire account belongs to the estate. There is also, among other benefits, a disability benefit that pays immediately upon injury, rather than waiting six months, plus other restrictions, as under Social Security.
And those who retire under the Galveston model do much better than Social Security. For example:
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