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Official installed by Trump moves to 'demolish' Social Security Administration
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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That's not how Social Security works. It's not a retirement fund.
The people who pay in today fund the soc sec payments to people who are qualified to receive benefits today.
Yes.
Glad I gave them 150k
If I had invested my SSI payments over the years, I would be getting way more each month just from the dividends/interest.
That's called a 401k.
Almost all of them just invest in index funds.
They typically have massive penalties for early withdrawal, in case of say, suddenly becoming disabled because you were crippled in a car accident.
If you try to make withdrawals from your 401k to cover living costs while recovering... or if you can't recover, in perpetuity... well you're looking at a ballpark of 1/3 to 2/3 of your money going poof, eaten up accordingly.
Even if you invested on your own, having to withdraw regularly for a permanently disabling injury will run out in time, unless you've got more than... roughly 10 mil put away.
If you have that, then great for you, 99% of people don't and never will.
Oh right. The stock market also regularly crashes, so a rational person should expect their snowballing nest egg to suddenly melt off by 5% or 15% or 30% every 5 to 10 years, with broadly predictable timeframes, but not specifically knowable exact dates.
If you think you can precisely time the market, 99% chance you're wrong, 1% chance you have insider information.
...
The Social Security income tax structure is ass backwards. After around 120k of income, there are no more marginal taxation increases for any kind of declared income.
Poor people pay astoundingly, disoroportionately more into Social Security, and their benefits basically get slashed to nothing if they try to return to work in a meaningful way, the ladder gets pulled out right as your on the 2nd rung...
... meanwhile, the super rich people pay a pittance of their overall income toward Social Security, and they get to enjoy all kinds of intentionally carved out loopholes designed for them to avoid even more of the ways they make money being classed as taxable.
The nation's economy relies on people who don't make enough to tuck money away.
Sounds like a George W Bush voter
So that elderly and disabled people who need that right now to survive right now, yes.
Under the agreement that it would be there for us though.
I'm glad that people are getting payments, but I want it too; it's a benefit that we were promised for good reasons.
They're right to be pissed that they paid into it without getting that benefit.
That I can agree with.
I still stand by:
I understand what you are saying, but the typical Republican and libertarian argument against social security is that "it's my money, I should be able to manage it myself, I can get a better rate of return than the government."
So if they are going to gut SS without paying us all back, that's just boldly hypocritical of them. Though that's not surprising, of course.
It used to be fully funded with the money paid into it. Your current contributions are supposed to be paying for your future security.
https://www.fedsmith.com/2013/10/11/ronald-reagan-and-the-great-social-security-heist/
Most after me already rebuttled to this. But there's a point that really pisses me off with the boomers. I see them getting free Healthcare, free college courses if they want them, and other benefits all while they led to the bullshit we all have to live with today. It's the I got mine, fuck you, generation. And everyday it gets harder to see my friends struggle to live while they continue to vote more and more red. Generalization for sure but statistically accurate. I was fortunate enough to max out my SS payments for most of my career and the whole time I assumed I'd never see a penny of it because this fucking generation was gonna gut it before they die off so they can buy a 3rd house.
It kind of is supposed to be that actually. What else would you call a system that you pay into your entire life?
But it's just literally not. People who are eligible for social security benefits receive them. People who earn income pay for those benefits. There isn't a "your money" in social security like there is in a 401k or IRA.
It's everybody's money. And you are eligible to withdraw from it once you are over a certain age. Why are you arguing semantics?
Because it’s not a good faith argument. People like that hate the idea there’s a social contract and like to pretend it doesn’t exist.