Posted on 11/20/2008 10:38:12 AM PST by Conservababe
Retirees receiving Social Security seem to believe that they will die before collecting all their lifetime contributions to the system, leaving a balance. But is this the truth? I know there are many variables so I was hoping someone could point me to stats.
Gotta admit I'm in that boat. Before I retired at 65 in 1998 the max SS tax I paid was something in the range of $3600 a year. I am now drawing $2,100 A MONTH. In the early days, I felt guity, now I just take the money and run - and wonder how soon taxpaying citizens will take to the streets.
Not so, you also get disability compensation if you are injured and can’t work.
I started in 1966
at end of 07 I had paid $103,500 and my employer a similar amount
this does not include the 26,800 for Medicare (also my employer paid a similar amount)
so take the $207,000 SS amount, divide by my monthly check of 1700 (age 62) and get 121 months - however SS is indexed for inflation so it would actually be a shorter time - of course this all assumes somehow my kids can put enough into the tax system to keep it alive
Both you and your employer pay into FICA (Social Security). Each half pays 6.2% with a cap of $102,000 annually. I expect Obama of either removing the cap althougher or raising the percentage rate for FICA. Either way we are gonna get hit.
Ida May Fuller (September 6, 1874 – January 1975) was the first American citizen to receive a monthly benefit Social Security check. She received the check, amounting to $22.54, on January 31, 1940.
Fuller was born on a farm outside Ludlow, Vermont. She spent most of her life in Ludlow, working as a legal secretary, but lived with her niece in Brattleboro, Vermont during her last eight years. She retired in 1939, having paid just three years of payroll taxes. She received monthly Social Security checks until her death in 1975 at age 100. By the time of her death, Fuller had collected $22,888.92 from Social Security monthly benefits, compared to her contributions of $24.75 to the system.
SS is 3 or 4 things combined in one.
It's a forced retirement plan.
It's a retirement insurance plan. (If you outlive your "savings" you continue to get paid.)
It's a Cost of Living insurance plan. (Your retirement payment goes up with inflation.)
It's a welfare/insurance program for the disabled.
It's a child survivor insurance benefit program.
They really need to separate out these components and manage and report on them accordingly.
Few people actually understand this fact and even fewer believe it.
Also, very few understand that as a "tax" the Federal Government has no legal obligation to return anything to those who paid into Social Security.
Balance? ROTFLMAO. There was no balance as far back as 1964 when Ronald Reagan told us about the “trust fund” scam.
Wow...what do we have here? Michele Obama signed up on FR?
Absolutely. If you have the means to not need SS, then you are EXEMPT from PAYING as well as collecting. But I'm sure that is not what you mean, he asked testingly.
If you had taken the social security taxes collected from you and your employer ($206,000) over the past 40 years and each year instead had put those into a bond paying 5%, you would now have a nest egg in excess of $450,000!!!!
And assuming as a retired person you only drew 5% a year from that $450,000 nest egg, you would receive $22,500 each year (nearly $2000 per month) and your family would still have the $450,000 when you died.
Yup those government programs are sure a great thing.
Re: “With every single pension or life insurance, the beneficiary is your spouse or your designated person.”
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True — but don’t forget if Congress has its way, we will soon be forking over HALF of our post-death assets in 401Ks and IRAs to the GOVERNMENT thanks to that Theresa Ghilarducci (sp) “plan.” Beneficiaries will get only half of what’s left in our accounts when we die!!!
Absolutely- opt out if you please, privatize. Anything. To have someone actually address the problem would be divine.
what are you? a comedian? I can only assume that your post means you have no understanding of what it means to “means test” a program. How dare you call me by that, or any OTHER demonRAT name- you don’t know me , so don’t insult me. YOU wouldn’t like it it if I refered to YOU as “Barney”, would you?
It’s class warfare when you make younger gens pay a tax to support the older gen.- and most of THEM don’t need it, and certainly less than those still working and supporting young families.
MEANS TEST SS. If they don’;t need it, they shouldn’t get it. I don’t CARE how “long” they have paid in. ALL of us pay taxes our whole lives- it ENTITLES us to NOTHING- get it?
Isn't that just another way of saying "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need?"
Re: No, retirees are not dying before they extract as much money from the system as they put in.
They are extracting far more than they put in.”
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In the first years of Soc. Sec., people tended to retire by 65 and died a few years later — if they lived much past 70 that was a big deal! But now, with people living so long —that Soc. Sec. just keeps getting paid out on the backs of younger workers.
My parents, Depression kids, always hated the idea of Soc. Sec. as it, like income tax in general, was designed to support those who would not or could not SAVE their income/assets for the future.
They recalled paying income tax at the end of the year, in total— all at once. Naturally that did not last long since so many people couldn’t/wouldn’t come up with the money to pay their tax share.
The current nightmare(s) have been a LONG time coming. Heaven knows how this country will recover from the multiple crises.
Re: “More class warfare. You want to means test people who have paid the maximum amount every year for 30 or 40 years and did the best they could to save for retirement? Screw that! You’re no better than the thieves that are stealing that money from me today.”
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Agree, nothing is more corrupt than the idea of “means testing.” That idea, long bandied about, needs to DIE.
If you're going to confiscate from my income on the pretense that it is forced savings for retirement, then you must pay it back. All of it. If you intend to reneg on the the agreement, stop stealing my money. Now!
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