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SOCIAL SECURTY CHECKS

The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment?"

The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal Benefit Payment." This isn't a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.

If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.
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> If you calculate the future value of your monthly invest-ment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved!

This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it’s a fact).

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.

Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger *Ponzi scheme* than Bernie Madoff ever did.

They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer. (Isn't it funny that they NEVER say this about welfare payments?)

But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they're calling it a *benefit*, as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.

Just because they borrowed the money doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!

Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government. Don't just assume that Social Security will disappear. Write your congressman and demand that they balance the budget some other way instead of stealing more of your wages without giving anything back.

Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.

They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer. (Isn't it funny that they NEVER say this about welfare payments?)

No they didn't forget. Glad you finally got to smell the roses. SSA has always been required to buy government debt. Totally secure investment.
And that's why that keep the interest rate at zero, they can't afford to pay any more.

Stealing isn't stealing when you write the "laws" that define and regulate it.

And when it goes keynesian economics belly up rewrite laws and redifine terms as required, fire up the printing presses, and roll it all over on we the people.

It's so easy a politician could do it.

Indy, thus begins the quandary of most of us who are getting to the age to "collect" Social Security. I've paid into it since I was 16 yrs old busing tables at a fine dining restaurant on the beach when I wasn't crawling around on jetties in the middle of the night fishing.

I not long ago dabbled in calculating how much I've paid into Social Security over the years and what my expected retirement payout per month would be had I just bought shares in blue chips directly through a DRIP plan with that money, aside from contributions to 401K, IRA, and real estate investing.

This was about the time I was calculating the cost of a new truck. Let's just say with the money that I've paid in over the years at a less than average rate of return, I could buy about 20 new trucks decked out over the period that I could reasonably expect to live long enough to collect Social Security.
Won't ever bother with that math again. Nothing to gain but anger.

Here's some more quick math. If you wait until you're at "full retirement age" (that's 66 for us salt & peppers), it'll take you until age 80 to equal the total monthly payouts you will receive it you start collecting at age 62.

BTW, some of yall's buddy Jeb and his runnin' buddies are trying to push your "full retirement age" back to 70... Think about that one for a second.

No safe investments yield anything close to 1% compounded monthly.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...d-social-security-what-you-paid-what-yo/

Not sure where the numbers referenced above came from, but it's been well documented elsewhere that most people get 1.5-3 times more from Social Security and Medicare than they paid in, depending on when they were born and when they retire. It's mainly seen on the lower end of the wage spectrum in terms of getting more than you paid in while once you get around $100K a year, you are likely to get back less than you paid in...

I bet no one here is figuring in the income taxes on your Social Security check, if you have a retirement check or other income. I am giving 20% of my wife and my checks back to them in income tax. miles

Some income is exempt.

Sorry Bob, but your reference is the moral equivalent of a lie. Not you, it. When over a life time they calculate 2% growth on you "investment", when simple index funds would have yielded 10% or better, that is a fraud, IMO. By the simple rule of 72, we've been royally screwed. Where are my mom's checks? She lived to get one SS check. The rest should have been in her estate instead of the crooked govt. Ponzi scheme. I wanna be FREE! Not baby-sat.

The govt. always was saying they were so "safe" and one could not be risking it in the market. Those crooks knew better and it has always been a wealth redistribution scheme. Now the old pols are dead and gone or on the big time dole, the truth comes out and just guess who is gonna have to take the hits from all that "safe" govt Management.

There are people collecting SS now whose originally contributed (confiscated) dollars bought twenty candy bars. Imagine what those dollars would be today if they were in a simple large cap index fund.

Pukes, now.

If you actually read the article you'll realize multiple non-partisan sources agree with the conclusion. If you look at social security the original recipients contributed little to nothing because SS is really just a ponzi scheme. The problem now is too few workers and too many getting benefits that never paid in. While it may not apply to any of the posters I can think of at least 20 elderly women that were or are on SS for 20-30 years that never paid a dime but still got both SS and Medicare. Someone has to pay for that... So if you look at your situation the numbers may not fit but on average across the entire program there are simply too many getting way more than they put in. And your argument about 10% returns is bogus as well as that type of return even on an index fund across 40+ years is closer to 6% and that would be keeping it there the entire time which assumes way too much risk near retirement for most retirees...

A few years ago Rush discussed the origins of SS. He said that when it was created, few men lived to collect it. At that time, most wives were homemakers and never earned a wage. SS was created mainly to give them an income after they were widowed. It was never intended to be a retirement plan. When men started living longer, the original plan fell apart and they've never done anything to really fix it. Everything they've done has made it worse and the worst of the worst was when they stole and spent the money by putting it in the general fund.

And when fat ass, 30 year old's started collecting it because they had a condition that kept them from working, called laziness.

I know how much I paid in, without interest. I don't know how much that would have been if invested instead. I do know some of the "figures" assume a level income with me "investing" more than the total paycheck when I was starting out.

I also know that some of the figuring on my wages through the years included that matching payment, reducing gthe amount I could have gotten. And all the retirement plans include figuring in SS as part of your income.

Medical care, and it's cost is a different thing, We have no idea how much it really costs for the things we get. I do know they will quickly offer discounts to anyone without enough insurance and money to pay for a disaster.

Unhappily, this leads me to a social network for a solution, if only there was an honest man to run it.

Social Security has never been part of my retirement plan and I will not get bent out of shape over how ufcked up the system is. Steelhead nailed a key element though... There are a lot of "good" people milking the systems.

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To make the information a bit more correct, "THEY" were President Lyndon B. Johnson and the TOTALLY SILENT Democratic and Republican members of Congress who stood SILENTLY by and let President Johnson take the money OUT of Social Security, put it in the General Fund and spend it on Johnson's "Great Society" give-away program.

What President Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought into being with Social Security in 1935 was the "rule" that the monies in Social Security would ONLY be shared with those retired workers who funded the then "new" Social Security Program... and the funds in Social Security could NOT be used for ANY other purpose.

"So much" for our self-serving elected representatives obeying the "promise" of a much respected President (FDR), but then... this is nothing new. They've been ignoring the laws or exempting themselves from laws WE must obey for a great many years if it benefited them to do so.

We keep hearing how Social Security (OUR money) is gonna be "broke" soon, but we never hear that Welfare is gonna go "broke" !!! Look who's handling the money! I.E., the "fox" is in the chicken coup !~!~! Is it any wonder???

Sad, isn't it?


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

I just consider it another tax. It's a tax to support the old, the sick and the lazy. If you consider a significant part of your future retirement income, you going to be living in poverty. I'm just hoping I can get some benefit out of my IRA's before they start garnishing those to prop up social security.

No, the actual return (S&P500) 1950 to 2009 is 11%. After inflation adj, it is 7%, which makes a HUGE difference in return. I agree with many of your points but for anyone to say one gets more out of the scheme based on a 2% return is a lie, no matter how many politicians on any side of the aisle agree with some of the points made in the article ( which I read until I got to the 2% assumption/lie.).

http://www.simplestockinvesting.com/SP500-historical-real-total-returns.htm

As to who pays for the widows, the someone who paid is their deceased spouse who collected little or nothing.

Bottom line is that progressive babysitting is anti-liberty and invariably a screw-up.

The good news is that one can draw SS, a pension, AND keep working. I am.

Oh wait, IS that good news????

The good news is that one can draw SS, a pension, AND keep working. I am.

Oh wait, IS that good news????