quote:

About 1/4th of the boomer generation are millionaires, there are households getting 120k a year in social security

A total bunch of crap.

The maximum Social Security payment for 2026 is $5,181 per month if you retire at age 70, but it's $4,152 at your full retirement age and lower if claiming at 62, requiring 35 years of earning the taxable maximum (which is $184,500 in 2026). Reaching this peak benefit demands consistent top earnings and delaying claims until age 70, which offers the highest possible monthly amount.
Key Factors for Maximum Benefit
High Earnings: You must have earned the Social Security taxable maximum ($184,500 for 2026) for at least 35 years.

Age at Claiming: Delaying your claim to age 70 maximizes your monthly benefit, as credits accrue until then.

So BOTH parties would have to earn an average of 185k a year for their entire work career.

Sure, that happens.

I started investing in funds decades ago to fund my retirement. That gives me the right to not have to listen to a bunch of whiners who can't make it.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
I alsways appreciated the irony of Boomers saying:

"I dont want to vote for Sociaiism!" and "Keep your hands off my Social Security!"

...in the same breath. SS is the very epitome of socialism.

What's your position on unemployment insurance? Your labors fund payments into trust funds that then pay out to the unemployed. It is held in trust funds like SS, and pays out similarly with no long term investment for you specifically.

Though the scale of payment you get is quite different than SS, it is otherwise the same concept.

How would you feel if you were laid off, at the end of week 1 of 52 of unemployment checks that you were promised, if the government said, "Sorry, Lefty, we're ending this program"?

Would you feel they'd broken an agreement with you? Would you feel that you'd paid into this system for decades under the promise of the benefit and it is wrong to take it away? Do you currently believe it is an unAmerican socialist program?

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
The government has three choices: raise taxes, cut benefits, print more money. None of which are popular.

What you call the program or who you blame for its failure doesn’t change that.

And one more choice which they've floated a couple of times. Confiscating retirement accounts, to protect us from bad investments don't ya know, and roll it into SS. Which would only make the long term problem exponentially worse but would kick the can further down the road.

All of this is a bit of a distraction from the much larger problem of the national debt. My kids and grandkids are going to get hurt much sooner and much worse by that than by paying 8% into FICA.

I would say that falls under raising taxes.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I would say that falls under raising taxes.

It would, of course, be a 100% tax, aka confiscation. But they won't call it that. They'll call it rescuing us, or they'll call it a different wrapper around an investment account we still supposedly have a claim to, as if we still sort of own it.

It will only be a one-and-done confiscation, not a perpetual funding source.

If they do attempt it, I predict a lot of us will find ways to remove the assets before they can take them.

@ReyHRH, we are all just giving opinions, none of us formulate policy.

But to state that another member does not understand the issue assumes quite a bit. Transfer payments/welfare/social spending programs are an albatross on all of us. Remember the government is just a political representation of the US, any fiat money they generate just reduces the value held by the general population.

The members here were adamant that Social Security is not welfare, and so I yielded the point in order to hammer home the crux of the issue.


I’ll let this link explain it to you and others. Happy to hear your thoughts… and please note the 1945 numbers. https://budget.house.gov/resou...0percent%20of%20GDP.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:

What's your position on unemployment insurance? Your labors fund payments into trust funds that then pay out to the unemployed. It is held in trust funds like SS, and pays out similarly with no long term investment for you specifically.

Though the scale of payment you get is quite different than SS, it is otherwise the same concept.

This wasn’t asked of me, but my position is identical - and I have skin in that game. I was laid off right before getting married, and lived off of my emergency fund for 6 months before landing the right job for my career.

I didn’t collect a penny of unemployment “insurance” out of principle.

quote:

Originally posted by rscalzo:

quote:

About 1/4th of the boomer generation are millionaires, there are households getting 120k a year in social security

A total bunch of crap.

The maximum Social Security payment for 2026 is $5,181 per month if you retire at age 70,....

High Earnings: You must have earned the Social Security taxable maximum ($184,500 for 2026) for at least 35 years.

Not necessarily questioning you, but you might want to check your numbers.

According to my Social Security account/website, I'll be just under that max amount at age 70. While I do well now, I haven't made that for the past 35 years.

And those complaining that higher income earners are getting more upon retirement seem to fail to understand that they are also putting more IN during their working years.

I agree that SS is a mess with few ways to fix it that are palatable. My (partial) solution is to raise the full retirement age to 70ish. Life expectancy ages have gone way up since the 1930s. Another (partial) solution is to limit withdrawals to total deposits. Many/most people are getting far more than they put in.

If a married couple both made that inflation adjusted amount for 35 years (and were taxed accordingly) then I hope they enjoy the shit out of their 120k. They earned it. They more than earned it. They probably subsidized the shit out of a bunch of people on this very forum. Means testing is bullshit. You paid into the system you get paid at the end. A whole lot less than what was paid in by the way using even the smallest of compounded interest.

I’m about to be 62 and I have applied for and been approved to start collecting my SS.

Am I supposed to feel guilty about it. According to some people in this community, yes…

I paid in since I was 14 when I got my first official pay stub.

I’m at the very end of the boomers.

These attitudes towards the boomers are ridiculous.

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:
@ReyHRH, we are all just giving opinions, none of us formulate policy.

But to state that another member does not understand the issue assumes quite a bit. Transfer payments/welfare/social spending programs are an albatross on all of us. Remember the government is just a political representation of the US, any fiat money they generate just reduces the value held by the general population.

The members here were adamant that Social Security is not welfare, and so I yielded the point in order to hammer home the crux of the issue.


I’ll let this link explain it to you and others. Happy to hear your thoughts… and please note the 1945 numbers. https://budget.house.gov/resou...0percent%20of%20GDP.

You don’t need the @ to tag me; it doesn’t work any way. I search for either “Rey” or HRH when I log on for when people reply to me.

We’re all just giving opinions but you need to distinguish between statements of facts and statements of opinions. Opinions would be what you think will fix the problem. There is room for differing opinions on what would fix the problem. Statements of facts, on the other hand, are either true or false and can be established as such. Statements of opinions are derived using statements of facts and logical reasoning that show how the conclusive statements of opinions logically follows from the statements of facts.

A conclusion can be invalidated when either the reasoning leading up to the conclusion or the statements of facts used in the argument are invalid.

Your statement that social security is welfare is invalid as shown by your own definition - aid given to those in need - and the government pdf describing the difference between social security and SSI. I’m surprised you didn’t know that when you conceded that point, you conceded the validity of your opinion which is based on your invalid statement of fact whether social security is welfare.

In an argument, if you think your point is correct, then you either prove your assertion is correct or concede that it is false. There’s no conceding “just because” and continue thinking your argument is valid.

As an employer, I had to match all my employee's SSI deductions and pay twice the rate they did for my own. The government makes it extremely difficult for a start-up business to succeed.

We had a 401K for our employees where we matched their savings 1.5 to 1. Since they payed no income tax on that, it cost them 70 cents to save $2.50 for their retirement. We finally cancelled that plan as on 5 people out of 25 were using it and management fees no longer penciled out. They didn't teach financial planning in high school.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by rscalzo:

quote:

About 1/4th of the boomer generation are millionaires, there are households getting 120k a year in social security

A total bunch of crap.

The maximum Social Security payment for 2026 is $5,181 per month if you retire at age 70,....

High Earnings: You must have earned the Social Security taxable maximum ($184,500 for 2026) for at least 35 years.

Not necessarily questioning you, but you might want to check your numbers.

According to my Social Security account/website, I'll be just under that max amount at age 70. While I do well now, I haven't made that for the past 35 years.

And those complaining that higher income earners are getting more upon retirement seem to fail to understand that they are also putting more IN during their working years.

I agree that SS is a mess with few ways to fix it that are palatable. My (partial) solution is to raise the full retirement age to 70ish. Life expectancy ages have gone way up since the 1930s. Another (partial) solution is to limit withdrawals to total deposits. Many/most people are getting far more than they put in.

You do realise that those numbers are estimates. My numbers were nowhere near what was listed on their website upon retirement.

Notice how the government set it up so half of the SS/Medicare tax comes out of our pay, and our employer pays the other half?

Imagine if people saw the full 15% taken out of their paycheck? But that invisible half of the money would otherwise be paid to us as compensation if not for the employer half of the tax.

Fly-Sig:

I've benefitted from unemployment insurance, but how much is paid in and how much is paid out is minuscule compared to SS.

Please stop saying "trust fund". Unemployment insurance and SS are not in any way anythign approaching a "trust fund". Unemployment is simply a current account at the state level paid into by employers and paid out to the unemployed. Hopefully they do something with it to earn interest or some return. It is insurance, not something you will get, no matter what, when you reach a certain age.

SS is pure socialism. It even has "social" in its name! Taking from some and giving to others. There is immense irony when conservative Republicans rail against socialism, but insist SS is something else. It isn't. It's pure socialism.

Welfare is needs based, only the poor get it. Social Security is for everyone regardless of need.

Yeah, the government made a promise, yeah we all want to get what we were promised. I get it. I will get mine too - my full retirement age is 67 since I was born in 1972. I may draw at 62 if I retire early because I saved plenty in IRA/401K. The bigger issue is no Medicare until 65 and cost of private insurance at that age will be prohibitive.

But there is no denying that such a system is unmanageable by the government because they always spend everything they don't have to pay out. There is a pile of Treasury notes in the SS account that have to be paid back to make the system solvent. Owing yourself money is absurd. The only way to pay it back is to raise taxes or cut spending somewhere else. It was set up as a current tax. Even the states have real pension funds and fiduciary duty to state employees, although many are underfunded due to rosy return predictions intended to minimize funding so they can spend the money somewhere else.

And as a current tax there will be FAR too many SS beneficiaries relative to employees paying tax. The system is upside down and no one is doing anything to fix it.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
The government has three choices: raise taxes, cut benefits, print more money. None of which are popular.

What you call the program or who you blame for its failure doesn’t change that.

Printing more money is popular, very popular, with politicians. Neither cutting benefits nor raising taxes are popular with politicians because the are both direct affronts to potential voters who will notice the affront and not be happy with the politicians responsible for it.

Printing more money causes inflation which is a hidden tax on everyone, but a lot of potential voters don’t understand or pay attention to that so there are much less likely to immediate consequences that way. That’s how we got into the mess we’re in. Heck, lots of voters don’t even realize we’re in a mess.

A huge chunk of social security goes for disability payments. The fraud in that fund by far exceeds what the Somalis have pilfered. It is rare that the goverment follows up on spurious claims.

quote:

Imagine if people saw the full 15% taken out of their paycheck? But that invisible half of the money would otherwise be paid to us as compensation if not for the employer half of the tax.

^^^^^^
Well I do not have to imagine that as I have paid the full amount for over 45 years as I am self employed.

quote:

Originally posted by PR64:
I’m about to be 62 and I have applied for and been approved to start collecting my SS.

Am I supposed to feel guilty about it. According to some people in this community, yes…

I paid in since I was 14 when I got my first official pay stub.

I’m at the very end of the boomers.

These attitudes towards the boomers are ridiculous.

Couldn’t agree more and I am a different generation than you. Blame shifting is bs. I started working at 10, and started paying into SS at the same age as you.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Imagine if people saw the full 15% taken out of their paycheck? But that invisible half of the money would otherwise be paid to us as compensation if not for the employer half of the tax.

^^^^^^
Well I do not have to imagine that as I have paid the full amount for over 45 years as I am self employed.

Yeah, that 40% self-employment tax sucks. Ran into that when my now ex wife did some side work as an event planner.

Can any of you adamant about receiving Social Security acknowledge that it may possibly be a deeply flawed program that likely should not exist?

That’s a possible start. I understand that you paid in well in excess of what you stand to receive, in many cases.