Those poor millionaires, being asked to contribute to society. How could you?!
Fucking lazy-ass boomers getting my money.
Lazy-ass boomers that paid into SS their entire lives? Those lazy-ass boomers?
Like millennials, right?
Yup, the same ones that actively were able to benefit from the cap of ss contributions due to their secure jobs paying out more than any of us are proportionally making now. Those same secure jobs they only received because the U.S. got to establish itself as a global hegemony due to being largely unharmed by WW2.
Boomers got to live the good life at the expense of our future, and they didn’t do a goddamn thing to deserve it.
A cap is so stupid. The only benefit of a cap is to people who don’t need to contribute after the cap. It doesn’t help society, it doesn’t help social security. It shouldn’t be “I contributed enough this year, see ya later as I climb my piles of money!!”
Our (I’m from UK) governments are so fucked up every decision is to make the rich richer. At this point I have no idea how the western world can break out of this corruption
Everybody unionize?
I work for a private wealthy company and have no issues personally with money. Is it my responsibility to quit this job and get a lower pay one to unionize?
Honestly I’m genuinely lost on how to help everyone else. I guess the issue is I’m not selfless enough to give up my lifestyle or money to help.
I have voted for labour (or any other party besides the Tories) every single local and general election. That’s pretty much all I can do
Without knowing the specifics of your situation, I’d suggest maybe keeping your existing job, but talk to your coworkers. Start by discussing salary, and then work your way up to possible unionization. You shouldn’t have to be selfless; that won’t scale.
I can somewhat relate - I’m an engineer and only a handful of us at my company seem interested in unionizing.
Stop spreading this BS. SS going bankrupt is misinformation.
Is it though?
(From Bard) “The Social Security trust funds are projected to run out of money by 2034. This means that the Social Security administration will only be able to pay out 77% of a retiree’s full benefits.”
Which I get isn’t exactly the same as what OP is claiming, but it is still pretty concerning for those of us not close to retirement age
Read any SS Trustees report. It doesn’t have “money”, it has debt instruments (bonds), which are essentially a document saying “we the government owe ourselves a thousand dollars”. You can print those all day, it’s only sourcing that money that has any kind of direct consequence (taxation, inflation, etc.).
And yes, that does raise an interesting question of, what did they do with the actual money we paid into the programs, if the only thing in the trust fund is bonds.
Don’t they pull from SS funds to pay for other things but then “give it back” at some point? I feel like I read something about that, maybe what’s being paid back isn’t “cash” but bonds?
In effect, the bonds I mentioned are just inverted loans. The Treasury takes in $1k from payroll taxes for these programs, issues a bond to the trust fund saying “I owe you $1k plus interest”, spends the $1k on whatever (I guess primarily the discretionary budget) and eventually has to somehow generate money to pay it back with interest.
In terms of whether or not bonds were “borrowed” - this wouldn’t exactly matter in a meaningful sense, but I’m not clear this ever actually happened in the first place. There was some claim about, when the trust fund was mixed with the general fund 1968-1990, maybe the government took bonds out of the program, but you have to remember that inside the government, that’s not something of value, that’s just an obligation the government has to pay to itself, it’s a big nothing burger. The outstanding liabilities from Social Security to the actual beneficiaries (elderly people) exist regardless of how the government is doing their accounting internally.
is still pretty concerning for those of us not close to retirement age
It’s even more concerning for those of us who are close. Even most of us with savings are pretty reliant on that for retirement
Isn’t “exactly” still means the statement “bankrupt” is false. Don’t move goalposts in the claims. That’s disingenuous and only adds to the misinformation.
I want to believe. Can you provide sources for that claim?
How about OP provides sources to their claim first.
On one hand: fair. If you’re not versed in elements of tax law this bit of data can seem arcane.
On the other: this is a matter of policy - not one of research. The definitive answer can be found with relative ease via a Google search. Here’s a link to a Social Security Administration page on the topic: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/cbb.html
By the math set out at the above link, one can calculate that, at a maximum income of $168,600 and a SS Contribution rate of 6.2%, the most any individual would contribute to social security in a year would be $10,453.20.
$10,453.20 would represent 0.052266% of the income of someone making $20 millions per year. Even doubling that amount (as some conservatives do) to count the employer’s contributions to Social Security would leave you with just over 0.1% of net income.
So yeah, even if Social Security isn’t going bankrupt, it’s an anemic system that barely provides livable circumstances for those who depend on it. Raising or removing that “max income for contributions” limit would go a long way to seeing the system be able to actually support people who need it while only burdening those most able to bear the burden.
Ninjaedit: grammar
What is the difference between a CEO and Santa Clause?
spoiler
Both of them judge you all year round, but one of them performs at least one day of work.
$168,600
That’s the cap. It is clearly and obviously only benefiting the rich. Absolutely insane.
Social Security doesn’t have assets, it has debt obligations, which to the government, are something you can conjure out of thin air. The only senses in which it can “run out” is if outlays exceed receipts, or if it runs out of debt instruments to cash out and has to ask for a pile of more debt instruments.
Vote. Every. Time.
Voting prevents things from getting worse, it doesn’t make things better.
Not sure I agree. Obamacare is better than then nothing-burger that was available before if you didn’t get healthcare through an employer. Biden is trying to at least get some student loan relief through congress. Getting the right people elected to state governments can help make abortions available again in some states. (If you’re a right-wing person then choose the opposite topics for your examples.)
People who are defeatist about voting come across as complainers who are too lazy to get off their butts to help.
Not sure I agree. I think many people who are “defeatist about voting” have observed that the surface-level differences between Democrats and Republicans (namely social issues and the more visible fascism from Republicans) just mask an underlying corporatist/fascist state that’s sacrosanct and immune from popular pressure and legislative change.
Re: “Obamacare” (which is just one tiny change mind you) - there were some marginal improvements like re: preexisting conditions, but mostly it seemed to increase compliance costs, my understanding is premiums have just continued rising and the fundamental issues causing healthcare scarcity and limiting competition have been made worse.
While I don’t disagree, the individual mandate was a crucial part of making it work, and also the weakest part of it. There shouldn’t have been an individual mandate without a much larger medicaid supplement or Medicare-for-All as options. A handslap fee for not having insurance was both a worthless penalty and legally shaky from the get-go.
There should’ve been caps on premium and deductible increases that were way more realistic, too. Like rent-control and tied to either a maximum percent of net profit increase, or inflation, etc.
Ultimately I don’t think Obamacare went far enough, and I don’t think there’s an argument to the contrary that’s not in favor of protecting the true enemies of sustainable healthcare, the insurance companies.
I can see what you’re saying, but I’m not talking about marginal improvements for the vast majority, or vast improvements for the vast minority. I’m talking about large, systemic improvements.
The issue with electoralism is that the right candidates cannot make it to the ballot in the first place, the system weeds them out.
I’m not defeatist about voting, I think loss prevention is crucial. I’m not naive though, voting won’t ever fix our society, that must be done at the grassroots level.
*And/or choose action, because the system is rigged on several levels and our options suck
I agree. The options at the voting center are rarely great. Action is certainly better.
But getting off the sofa to vote for the least-evil option is critical. Especially in the primaries and mid-terms. Vote. Every. Time. Vote for dog-catcher, school boards etc.
If you’re young it’s even more important.
Many of the elderly retirees are already forced to choose between living in a vehicle or paying rent and starving. If SS is still a thing by the time im old enough to retire that monthly check wouldnt be enough to even afford a hyperinflated big mac let alone rent.
If you don’t own your own property by the time you retire, then you’re fucked.
Even then, my landlord needs my income too or she can’t afford the house… It’s so disgusting.
Part of me wishes we could all move out and once and force the wealthy to reap what they sow. Everything is too expensive and we’re not paid enough, social security isn’t enough, well when they’re the only ones left for miles and miles then who will do everything for them?
ShOuLd HaVE saVeD sOmE DAmn mOnEyyy…
NGL im kind of halfways on that. Yes obviously thinking about investment and ways to make up passive income or even start your own buisness are the best ways to plan for a healthy retirement fund. But people who come from poverty, poorly educated to begin with, poor financial mindset, and just scrapes each week are going to have a much harder time of it and if they try they usually fall for an MLM scheme. Its easy to judge these people and go ‘well your financial failure to save up is your own fault you idiot’ but Ive had enough poverty stricken friends to know that the deeper the hole you are born into the harder it is to climb out of even with honest work and educating yourself through the internet.
Exactly. You have to earn enough in the first place to save enough.
Either earn enough or become super frugal and cut down on the expenses to the point you can actually save with what you make The biggest thing a single person can do to reduce their expenses is cut out the rent payments by living in a vehicle for a bit while working and use that money to pay it off. But obviously not everyone has the mental fortitude to adapt to such a radically different lifestyle or freedom from responsibility to do so even if they wanted to.
“life is too expensive to be sustainable…”
“HAVE YOU TRIED BEING HOMELESS?”
It doesn’t have to be that extreme, you could just live in circumstances that you don’t prefer that aren’t on the road. I live in a dilapidated garage that is the cheapest thing around. I hate it, I have a playschool size “babys first refrigerator,” no clothes dryer, far from anyone my age, etc… but I can save a few hundred a month that I would have otherwise been throwing away at some corporate landlord.
The idea was to do this until I made enough to afford a house, but COVID came and said “fuck your future and just about every one else’s too. Also I’ma kill millions of you but somehow make housing prices increase anyway.”
About the clothes dryer thing, look into this kind of portable washing machine+spin dryer
I watched nomadic fanatics review of one and honestly looks to do a pretty decent job. Heres the review vid
I live in a 4 season canvas tent offgrid myself. Good on you for finding a way to save $ by giving up some lifestyle convinence. I hope you find ways to further improve your quality of life within the garage.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll have to look into that for sure :D
Reposting from another thread:
Social security has been 10-15 years away from being insolvent for 80 years. It will always be 10-15 years away from being insolvent because of the way it’s calculated.
When the CBO or whoever scores it they can predict certain things like the number of recipients, the size of their payments, and inflation. They aren’t allowed to take into account things that Congress may (but definitely will) do in the future, like raising the cap on social security taxes roughly with inflation. It went up from $160200 in 2023 to $168600 in 2024. This is a rare bipartisan, uncontroversial thing. Congress almost always follows the SSA recommendation exactly.
It would be more accurate to say “if the social security cap stays at $168600 for 10 years, social security will be insolvent.”
The people pushing this bullshit know it’s bullshit. They do it to make people think they’ll never get social security so they can get enough voters on board with killing it, like they’ve been trying to do for 88 years.
Don’t fall for it.
That’s populism, and left populism is pretty strong here.
Your logical fallacy is showing, and your comment is wholly bullshit. Bye, Felicia.
They spend more as they get in, it will run out. No amount of tomfoolery will change that.
They’ve been saying that my entire life, my dad’s entire life, and when my dad was my age, my grandfather would tell him he’s heard the same things his entire life going back to the 40s.
For a couple decades the disingenuous doom -and-gloomers told us no way could social security ever deal with the baby boomers. All through the 80s and 90s they told us we might as well privatize it or kill it all together. The only time wall street shut up about it was when they were too busy jerking off to the thought of getting their hands on that money. Well, the youngest of the boomers turn 60 in '24, they’re almost all in and the end times keep getting pushed back, from the 80s to the 90s to the 00s to the 10s to the 20s and now 2035. It’s like a doomsday cult that keeps pushing the date when the apocalypse doesn’t arrive at the appointed time.
You’ll have to excuse me for not getting worked up over the 40th new year I’ve heard for the sky falling.
And for what it’s worth, managing the COLAs, the cap, the percentages, and anything else the SSA has done throughout it’s existence isn’t “tomfoolery,” it’s accounting. And damn good accounting so far. The SSA being such a well run government institution probably makes republicans hate them almost as much as the tax itself.
Sure upto now it’s been fine…
But a WHOLE LOT of new people will be getting check soon…
And military and debt spending are through the roof And the normal people are paying groceries and rent with their credit card…
I’m. Sure they’ll solve it tho, last minute.
That exact comment would be at home in a letter to the editor in response to an article in any newspaper, in any year, for the past 80 years. And on any discussion board from the earliest days of the internet until now.
I’m not going to make any assumptions about your age or the length of time you’ve paid attention to these issues, but if it’s only been a decade or so, you should start seeing the pattern soon. It won’t even be at the last minute, it’ll just keep slowly moving out so it’s always 10-15 years away. Don’t let them scare you into helping them do what they’ve been trying for 88 years.
This program has kept a lot of elderly and disabled people out of poverty. Don’t let them take it.
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No.
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“Tomfoolery”? Step away from the idiot box, gramps.
Sure granny, go believe them,I’m sure those 2 trillion arnt in some loss leading 1% government bonds
Have you not been paying attention to what the Fed has been doing? Pardon my language but shoving cash up my asshole earns more than 1% these days.
In 2022, before most of the rate hikes, the trust fund earned $66.4 billion. This year’s high, and hopefully very temporary, interest rates aside, it’ll usually be around 2.5-3%.
I’m not sure what you think loss leading means or why you’re using it here, but governments storing reserve money earmarked for a specific purpose in their own bonds isn’t unusual or a bad thing. Should they stuff it under a mattress earning 0%? Should they risk it in the markets? Unsecured domestic bonds? Foreign bonds?
So pissy you can’t even type straight? Breathe, tiger. Go touch grass.
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Could someone explain how it could run out if there are still workers contributing to it every year?
deleted by creator
Ah thanks! This explained everything.
Because it’s paying out/getting raided faster than people are contributing to it
People living longer and the yearly increases.
With boomers retiring, we will have a large amount of people collecting social security.
I wish we could opt of social security. It’s a ponzi scam. I have out in the max since about age 22.
Yet my benefit is capped at a payout about 36k a year.
If I had put that same money in the stock market. I’d receive well over 100k a year.
Who would opt out of SS the most? People living paycheck to paycheck. Who can’t save for retirement at all? Those same people.
Allowing an opt out would mean homeless and suffering old people wandering and dying in the streets. Which is why SS was created in the first place.
ah maybe you’re confused by what I’m suggesting.
I’m not suggesting opt and not being forced to save. Just force them away from social security and into a 401k style program.
Same intent but with much better results.
Absolutely 1000% no.
Social security is guaranteed by the federal government. Making social security into 401k only benefits corporations by giving them a guaranteed funding source.
Hell, I hate the fact that companies moved from a pension system to 401k. Social Security is one of the last places where we have guaranteed income.
Social Security is adjusted for inflation and provides a predictable income stream you can plan for. Having it tied to the stock or bond market would result in big swings and also potential loss. Social Security isn’t maximized for profit, it’s maximized for predictability.
No.
Plus you could leave it to your heirs if you don’t spend it all, whereas your heirs over age 18 get nothing from SS after you die except a laughable few hundred for funeral expenses.
I love the intent of social security. The system itself has been robbed by politicians for years.
Had the money been invested, it would be self sustaining but that ship sailed.
It’s why the system to collapsing is because of the Ponzi scheme nature.
The intention is good and that I support. We just need a better system
Paul Krugman has an excellent book that spends the first few chapters discussing social security and the GOP’s dream of privatizing it called, Arguing With Zombies. I recommend checking it out, it covers a lot of US economic topics and dispels many myths.
But really, much of the drama around SS is very overblown. A small reform of increasing SS tax from 12.4% to 14.4% will fund the program for the next 75 years. Source: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html
The reason it’s even having a funding issue in 12 years is due to Congress (primarily the GOP) refusing to make the necessary reforms. They want it to fail because they want to privatize it, which Paul Krugman’s book goes into great detail about. Additionally, the average birthrate in the US went from 3 children per woman to 2 children, meaning there are less people paying in than before. And again, this is easily fixed by simply raising the tax by 2% (or lowering benefits by 13%), which the link I provided earlier discusses.
Getting rid/allowing people to opt out of SS is a terrible idea. Yes, many folks could take that money and have a better return. However, the majority of people would not. And what would happen when they’re disabled or retirement age? They’d be fucking broke and have zero savings. Guess what happens then? Mass crime. Crime like you’ve never before seen in the US. Social programs have proven time after time to be more effective at preventing homelessness and crime than any other government policy. Getting rid of it or even allowing people to opt out would 100% backfire on society at large.
Ah, the legacy of Bill Clinton. Found some money, but it was just plundering Social Security.
At least in principle, social security is a mandatory way of saving for retirement, not simply a tax. In that context, it makes sense that contributions are capped since payouts are capped.
Then why are CEO’s even paying for it?
So just to translate for non Americans: Social Security is a kind of guaranteed old age / retirement pension, by the looks of it.
Yea. 6.2% of each paycheck is taken out for SS and your employer will match it. Then, when you turn 67, you are of retirement age and will start reciecving monthly checks proportional to your income when you were working. There are exceptions but that’s generally how it goes
Exceptions like the entire millennial generation
That’s only true if we let Republicans axe it for real. This is a often-repeated line, but assuming all is lost multiple years in advance isn’t the right way to go about this.
the entire thing is based of exponential growth like our entire economy, which isn’t going to happen
republicans may accelerate the decline, but you’re lying to yourself if you think there will be retirement money waiting for you
I seriously doubt it will ever pay out enough to be a primary retirement method, but there isn’t enough evidence yet to say it’s likely to be 100% gone either. As the fund stands now without any legislative input, it’s set to run out after 2035 the earliest.
It would be a long and difficult road, but I think it’s still possible to keep SS running and/or a meaningfully sufficient replacement. It’s not as though the money required doesn’t exist. It’s just that oligarchs want to help as little as they can possibly get away with.
The moment we accept that terminating a fund that keeps people alive is tenable, they will be emboldened to do so. Personally I won’t accept it. Hopefully this generation will have enough political power to keep it, but I’m not going to rely on SS to retire either.
SS Works is
A poorly thought out tag
