Explain to me why we should pay your social security!

Please note, most conservatives will vehemently defend a social safety net for the elderly. This is not a left vs right issue; it is stupid vs reasonably smart.....you seem to be siding on the really dumb side of something I would bet 95% of the population thinks is a good thing.

CrispyChicken wrote:

The median net worth of Americans who are 75+ is $250k.

Whose to say it wouldn't be higher without the presence of the SS crutch? A reasonable person at age 18 or 22, knowing that SS would not be there at age 62 or more, would start building the nest egg as soon as they could. Or, are you saying that many people are not reasonable or do not have the self-control to forgo the cable TV, the streaming bill, the concert tickets, the new cars, the fancy vacations, and all of the other unnecessary spending that I see all around in order to save for their own wellbeing? Evolution is science; and natural selection is part of evolution, and therefore part of science

Disease is “a part of science” in that sense but we still take steps to mitigate it, as we should. Many 18-22 year olds already do start saving for retirement if they can. Many don’t. I’m not sure the promise of SS in their 60s has much to do with that.

To elaborate, if you’re “reasonable” enough (as you put it) to be thinking about the quality of your retirement when you’re a young adult then you’re likely thinking you’ll need more than just that SS check each month.

Running craze wrote:

$8k per year for 40 years is $320k. If you had that money to put in the stock market for that period of time, it would be well over $1M.

If you collect it as social security; Let's say $30,000 for 40 years; this is 1.2 million in return. Get over yourself. You are not even being smart, just a whiny rich kid with a crappy job because you did not work hard enough during your life so far.

CrispyChicken wrote:

One of the benefits, in my opinion, to social security is that it is a forced savings. If people were left to keep that money that would otherwise go in their pocket, they might buy things they wouldn't have bought and then not be able to support themselves in retirement.

Boo hoo hoo. Perhaps a little tough love is needed for a generation or two until humans re-learn how to be responsible for their own welfare rather than relying on the nanny state.

In times past, the younger generation expected to support their elders when the need arose. Social security merely codified an existing social contract. Strong families and multi-generational dwellings enabled the elderly to remain secure, often while still adding value in the form of child care and wisdom. That world no longer exists, so it's best that we have an alternative, albeit one that doesn't provide a particularly good investment return.

Lead Foil Hat wrote:

Running craze wrote:

$8k per year for 40 years is $320k. If you had that money to put in the stock market for that period of time, it would be well over $1M.

If you collect it as social security; Let's say $30,000 for 40 years; this is 1.2 million in return. Get over yourself. You are not even being smart, just a whiny rich kid with a crappy job because you did not work hard enough during your life so far.

If the occasional 110 year old manages to max out their social security benefits and collect a million dollars, more power to them.

People were forced to pay into the system - it isn’t as if they had a choice. I don’t have a problem with people taking out more in retirement than they ever put in because if they had been allowed to invest that money on their own, it likely would have increased in value by a lot if it had been placed in the stock market.

But Social Security is really nothing more than a Ponzi Scheme- for now the government is able to seemingly access new dollars printed by the FED at a very low cost, but this won’t always be the case. At some point, Social Security benefits will have to be reduced.

I do agree with you that everyone should save and invest on their own as well. I just assume that something will happen and the government will greatly reduce Social Security payments before I retire many years from now.

CrispyChicken wrote:

The median net worth of Americans who are 75+ is $250k.

Whose to say it wouldn't be higher without the presence of the SS crutch? A reasonable person at age 18 or 22, knowing that SS would not be there at age 62 or more, would start building the nest egg as soon as they could. Or, are you saying that many people are not reasonable or do not have the self-control to forgo the cable TV, the streaming bill, the concert tickets, the new cars, the fancy vacations, and all of the other unnecessary spending that I see all around in order to save for their own wellbeing? Evolution is science; and natural selection is part of evolution, and therefore part of science

I'm not sure you know many 18-22 year olds if you think they're buying new cars and going on fancy vacations. And Netflix is what $10? Hardly going to give you a nest egg.

And there are things you can only do when you're young, going to concerts for example. They wouldn't exist if all young people took your advice, along with bars and restaurants, movie theaters and everywhere else young people like to go.

Hey moron, you claim 20, 30x or more than paid in? You are right, have a biscuit! Now assume that a person is forced to make deposits of 12 percent of income, every week, for 50 years.... A very quick query with Google with give even an idiot such as yourself a link to a calculator to figure how much r.o.i. should be expected at even minimal interest rates. And while your at it, ask Google who owns the largest portion of the national debt. Congress essentially stole countless trillions from social security securities. When forced to admit they could never repay that debt, Congress then changed the law to what it is now.

I agree, I wish I could have the money I was forced to"save” every payday, to invest personally rather than to fund congress's wet dreams, because it would have been worth a hell of lot more than social security graciously pays back

DanM wrote:

My 62nd birthday is in May, 2022 I will be turning on the SS spigot as soon as possible. We could be heading for a massive currency devaluation as a result of the trillions of dollars in borrowed money that the Federal government is giving away. No sense in waiting .

Government debt will be harder to pay back because the 18 to 64 age group is shrinking as a percentage of the population.

That is the REAL REASON for Immigration, Some look at the Caravans of thousands of people trying to get into the USA as a problem, In reality it is Thousands of Future Taxpayers that will insure our retirements and pensions, SSI etc. will continue to be paid, For the most part Immigrants are an asset to the USA, we would not have won the race to the moon without immigrants like Werner Von Braun, Arthur Rudolph and many other Rocket Scientist's who settled mostly in Huntsville Alabama (that is why Huntsville is called Rocket City) Immigrants are NOT brought in because of how they might vote and they are NOT brought in as cheap labor, They are brought in because The USA fertility rates are below replacement levels and we need Taxpayers to fund SSI, Retirement, Pensions etc. We are doing the Immigrants a favor by giving them a better place to live, rather than stay in the Inferior Countries from which they came and they are doing us a favor by funding our liabilities. It is a trade off.

Enough with the Kid Gloves wrote:

Once you stop working you should be killed out right, you are no use anymore.

Someone who gets it.

We should at least stop treating cancer patients of a certain age who are no longer working.

"Social security merely codified an existing social contract."

So the government passed a law to replace what was not a "social contract", but a family. That's disgusting on many levels.

X-Runner wrote:

Enough with the Kid Gloves wrote:

Once you stop working you should be killed out right, you are no use anymore.

Someone who gets it.

We should at least stop treating cancer patients of a certain age who are no longer working.

Remember, "Soylent Green is People".

I'm not sure you know many 18-22 year olds if you think they're buying new cars and going on fancy vacations.

Every spring the news shows thousands of 18-22 year olds who supposedly can't pay their student loans partying it up on some warm beach. I don't think they walked there or flapped their arms really hard to fly there.

CrispyChicken wrote:

Every spring the news shows thousands of 18-22 year olds who supposedly can't pay their student loans partying it up on some warm beach. I don't think they walked there or flapped their arms really hard to fly there.

Flights are cheap these days, houses and pensions are expensive. Unlike when you were young and the opposite was true.

CrispyChicken wrote:

"Social security merely codified an existing social contract."

So the government passed a law to replace what was not a "social contract", but a family. That's disgusting on many levels.

What happened to people without children? What about people with handicapped children? Or children who were poor? Pre-1930's USA and many 3rd world countries have the retirement program that you advocate. It was and is a terrible existence for many seniors.

The performative sociopathy of libertarian bros is really childish. Absence of empathy isn't a virtue, it's a handicap.

Why should I pay property taxes that educate children when I don't have any? Why should I pay taxes that pay for policing to protect other people's property? Why should I pay taxes that build and fix roads for everyone to drive on? Why should I pay taxes for wars that I don't believe in?

Because it is part of the social contract. Companies get an educated workforce that they don't have to directly educate. The police protect everyone's rights and property, not just yours. Everybody drives on the roads and uses the infrastructure that the government builds. The military protects us all from being overtaken by other countries or war lords. Social Security allows people to work and contribute to society during their prime years and not work (or work less) in their not so prime years. If these things were eliminated, only the 1% would benefit and they would not benefit for long as society fell apart.

Running craze wrote:

This is strange timing. I made that same point to a running buddy today. I estimate that I have paid $200k into social security. I would be happy to sign in blood that I would take $100k and walk away. Everyone comes out ahead because the Government won't have to pay me $24k every year for the next 30 years and I get $100k today.

Here's a real world calculation of exactly how bad a deal social security is for a working professional (for comparison purposes I make less than a software engineer with the same amount of time on the job):

I have maxed the social security for the past 25 years and I have paid in $158,341.80 during that time. Given that the company has to match that $158k, I've paid in $316,683.60.

Using an annuity formula and reasonable assumptions for risk-free rate of return and life expectancy (I have a masters degree in finance, and built an extensive model in Excel), the present value of my expected social security payout (if I live to current life expectancy of 85), is $260,593.20. This is the current value of my future payouts, if I never put in another cent.

If I had been able to invest the $316,683.60 at a reasonable investment rate of return, say 7% (long-term rate of return of the DJIA), the present value of that money would currently be $745,067.69 (each year's amount put in at the end of the year and compounded annually).

If somehow I stopped putting money in today, the $260,593.20 I have in social security compounded at 3% (long term inflation rate, which is a useful assumption for the growth of your social security benefits) will reach a value of $755,271.62 when I die (if I live to current life expectancy, and assuming I never collected a payment). If I was able to cash out of social security today, a payout of $66,000, invested at 7% would yield $753,980.20 at the end of my life expectancy.

If I could take all my money out of social security today and invest it at 7%, the value of the money would reach $2,977,001.65 at the end of my life expectancy. If I had been able to invest at 7% from the beginning of my career, the value of the money would have reached $8,511,610.22 by the end of my life expectancy. That is if I had contributed up until today and never put in another cent (I still have 21 more years to work).

Social security is a ripoff but probably a necessary evil because people are so dumb with their money. Imagine how many less fortunate friends and family I could support with that 8.5 million. Instead, the government takes a fat chunk of that money paying themselves a salary to decide how to distribute that money, and gives absolute crumbs to the poor.

We are paying for social security because, as a society, we have decided that we don't want to support our friends and family directly. We outsource that job to the government and it costs us a lot. It would be so much better if people would help those around them as they deem necessary and get the government out of this business.

Another thread that shows people do not understand living in a society. The same society that enables them to be well paid for easy tasks.

None would want to back to a feudal system or hunter/gatherer individuals.

For the right to participate in a structured society, trade your products or talents (or lack thereof in most cases), the price is that you keep such system structured.

The money spent on the poorest inevitably finds its way back into the rich pockets.

To be honest, the work that most people do is not that critical, most are just modern 'pencil pushers', that are of less value to society than some without a real 9 to 5 job