Explain to me why we should pay your social security!

student of economics wrote:

The first U.S. citizens who received social security payments had not paid one penny into social security fund. You did not address that in your post.

It is not the fault of social security beneficiaries if politicians lack the courage to raise taxes. It takes gusto to raise taxes. Any politician can pander to the masses and campaign on cutting taxes.

The only tax that should be raised is by raising the threshold limit paid into SS. Currently, it is around $150K per year. Like someone said, this is a very regressive tax. Raise that limit to $1M or $2M, and we will see the deficit SS has lowering.

People work only as hard as they need to. Start talking about forgiving student loans and nobody pays off their loans. Tell people that you will provide for them after age 62 and they don't save on their own. Provide a large endowment and they will never work.

Running craze wrote:

People work only as hard as they need to. Start talking about forgiving student loans and nobody pays off their loans. Tell people that you will provide for them after age 62 and they don't save on their own. Provide a large endowment and they will never work.

Sounds logical, but the reality is that this is false.

That is just completely illogical. Ask the millions of retirees what they would do if we eliminated social security. Most would tell you that they would never have been able to retire. They would have continued working. Ask every 25 year old what they are doing about their student loans at the moment. They will all tell you that they are making only the minimum payments because of the rumors of forgiveness.

I don't get what you're trying to say - social security is bad because it means aging people don't have to work?

I am not making value judgments, just correcting an earlier poster who thinks that all of the old people would be starving in the streets because they are surviving off of social security from age 62 or 65 or 67. That is false. They would continue to work which may be a good thing. I don't know. But most would not quit at 65 if they have no income.

Running craze wrote:

People work only as hard as they need to. Start talking about forgiving student loans and nobody pays off their loans. Tell people that you will provide for them after age 62 and they don't save on their own. Provide a large endowment and they will never work.

You just made that up and it is generally not true. Most people save for retirement as living off of SS is really not an exciting lifestyle. I am pretty conservative, but only children are still dumb enough to think the way you are above in this context. Are you 17, mad about the 25 cent an hour coming out of your pay that you want to go towards the Ford Mustang you childishly purchased while your parents pay for everything else in your life. A homeless society and a soulless society is not one worth living in; we can afford to ensure the safety and financial security of the entire elderly population.

The median net worth of Americans who are 75+ is $250k. The average American retires at age 64. Of course if there was no Social Security, people would work much longer. If Social Security was eliminated today, the average retired American would run out of money in 5 years.

Also, forgiving student loans is stupid and not comparable to social security, which is actually people saving their money to reasonable degree. Also, according to your logic you are saying that rich kids don't work hard at all because people only work as hard as they have to.

OP, why are you so hung up on the hypothetical people “cheating” the system? What about the people who work hard and contribute all their lives and don’t live long enough to benefit from SS? What about those who are self reliant and generous and donate beyond their taxes toward causes that work toward financial stability and opportunity for others? The US is a wealthy country and I think we’re all better off if we can avoid a large number of our elderly retired folks who are less financially equipped (regardless of the reason) from becoming destitute.

No one wants to pay a lot in taxes but it’s still a lot cheaper than building our own roads to drive on, hiring our own police/security guards, trying to put out our own fires, etc. Some people benefit from these services more than they paid in but we’re still all better off.

Finally, I really don’t think the SS tax is excessive given the benefits. Furthermore, you don’t even pay it once you’ve made roughly $140,000 in a given year. Think about those who make a couple million in a year— they pay SS tax for a month and then they hit the FICA cap. Reasonable people can have differing opinions on the fairness of that but it’s certainly a rule of the game.

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.

What debt? How can we owe money to ourselves.

Why shouldn't we just let people come and take everything you demand is yours?

That is exactly Biden's immigration policy.

China.

CrispyChicken wrote:

Why shouldn't we just let people come and take everything you demand is yours?

That is exactly Biden's immigration policy.

And exactly why it is stupid. As a society we want our nation to have stuff and protection and we pay for that, just like we pay to have a healthy and stable (non homeless) elderly population.

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

Start talking about forgiving student loans and nobody pays off their loans.

Exactly. I just had this conversation with my niece yesterday. She is a well-paid GS Federal employee. As part of her diligent financial planning, she sees no reason to pay-off her student loans, although see can, so long as Biden is saying that he will forgive them. At this point, she would be stupid to pay them off if they will be forgiven.

That is my point. People generally will take care of themselves. They will save more and work longer if there is no Social Security. Others in this thread are so illogical that they believe people work and save without respect to their net worth or guaranteed income. They are claiming that with or without Social Security, people will retire at 64 but they will starve in the street without it or they will survive with it.

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

This is just dumb. Seriousy, does the small amount of SS money you pay each year really bother you. Without a healthy society you likely would not even have a job and be destitute yourself. Don't be a child, pay your dues.

X-Runner wrote:

CrispyChicken wrote:

So, in other words, a government run Ponzi Scheme.

No, not with population growth.

In a Ponzi scheme, you constantly need new investors and keep up.

With social security, people keep dying and the new workers make more money than the retired ones did years ago.

Well, isn't the increase in population the same as the new investors?

It's more like how we need income tax revenue to keep fundding an ever growing military budget.