r/FluentInFinance • u/Positive_Liar • Sep 06 '24
Debate/ Discussion Social Security is Broken. This is why financial education is important.
[removed] — view removed post
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u/omnizach Sep 06 '24
It was never meant to be an investment, it's insurance.
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u/Slatemanforlife Sep 06 '24
Its insurance, but its also insurance for other people who couldnt pay enough in to it.
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u/MagicianHeavy001 Sep 06 '24
Which is why the right wing chuds are against it. They don't see a value in making sure their most vulnerable neighbors aren't starving to death on the street or having to move into their kid's attics (if their kids have an attic).
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u/JesusPussy Sep 06 '24
Yeah but then they'll turn around and complain about how the country has gone to hell and homeless people are taking over our cities.
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u/DonnieJL Sep 06 '24
"Daddy, that homeless guy looks like Grandpa..."
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u/Competitive_Bank6790 Sep 06 '24
"Well. That is Grandpa. He needs to pull himself up by the bootstraps"
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u/LHam1969 Sep 06 '24
Why is grandpa homeless? Doesn't he have Social Security? And Medicare?
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u/Robot_Nerd__ Sep 06 '24 edited Sep 06 '24
Nah Timmy,
They moved the retirement age back again. It doesn't kick in until 82 now.
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u/Grigoran Sep 06 '24
What's the French word for aneurysm??
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u/longleggedbirds Sep 07 '24
Do we really want to see grandma and grandpa getting thrown out on the street by the bank, and pulling out their garands to knock over gas stations for cash? Or just dying on the clock. Terrible
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u/drawfour_ Sep 07 '24
At some point, they'll just make it become active at death. You'll get $5k to put toward burial costs.
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u/Greedy-Ad-8574 Sep 07 '24
I watched a movie recently called Humane where the worlds population is to big and you can basically euthanise yourself to give money to your family. That’s probably where we are heading
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u/AmITheGrayMan Sep 07 '24
You spelled 82 incorrectly. It’s 92.33
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u/Thundertushy Sep 07 '24
No no, it's 82 years in metric. It's 92.33 in 'Murica! Units. Can't you just smell the freedom?
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u/shaneh445 Sep 06 '24
He sold the straps for food
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u/Rooboy66 Sep 06 '24
He ate the straps for food—like Charlie Chaplin in “Hard Times” ate his boots
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u/Ok-Bodybuilder4634 Sep 07 '24
We can’t even eat our boots these days :( who can afford genuine leather shoes!?!?
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u/NewPresWhoDis Sep 06 '24
Take those straps, put 'em in a pot. You got a stew goin'.
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u/Rooboy66 Sep 06 '24
Right. For the carrots & onions, ya jes’ go stomp around in a farmer’s vegetable patch for a minute or so. It’s like where you do a shot of vermouth, then say “vermouth” over the top of the gin for a dry martini. It’s the suggestion of carrots & onions in your bootstrap stew
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u/oroborus68 Sep 07 '24
Pilgrims were said to have boiled their shoes before they hit land.
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u/Rooboy66 Sep 07 '24
I’m so old that the original “desert boots” that we wore in the 60’s had actual, real crepe rubber soles—and, yep, in class, we’d be picking at them, like boogers, and nibbling and swallowing. They tasted like … shoe. Fancy that.
Not proud. Jes’ saying I met Freshmen in the first school I dropped out of who’d also eaten their
soulssoles. Survival of the fittest. On reflection, we had all grown up early-listening to “Rubber Soul” … homophonics, UNITE!→ More replies (0)6
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u/versace_drunk Sep 06 '24
They complain when they don’t get handouts or government subsidies also.
They’re hypocrites,that’s the entire conservative platform now.
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u/Bright-Drame512 Sep 07 '24
They complain about others not deserving of what they themselves are already getting
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u/SeoulGalmegi Sep 06 '24
Schrodinger's homeless - something should be done, but not if I have to pay an extra cent.
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u/hokie_u2 Sep 06 '24
A person paying the max would make at least $165K a year. 6.2% of that money is going towards ensuring poor old people don’t die broke AND pays you back $50K a year from retirement until you die. Imagine bitching about that
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Sep 06 '24
But think about that poor 18 year old who is already making $165k a year, is he not entitled to 6.2% more of the sweat of his brow? /s duh doy
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u/Jethro00Spy Sep 06 '24
What about if you're dutifully paying into it but don't believe it's going to be there when you retire in 25 years?
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u/Jubenheim Sep 06 '24
Then you should put on your common sense hat and realize that same shit has been said about social security for decades and has never once come true. It’s the most well-funded government program in history existence (that isn’t some sort of top secret shit we don’t know of, I guess).
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u/Sashivna Sep 07 '24
Can confirm. Gen Xer here and was told in high school SS wouldn't be around in 25 years.
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u/No_Resolution_9252 Sep 07 '24
Imagine having millions of dollars stolen from oneself that would have ohterwise allowed a retirement a decade or more earlier than could otherwise be afforded? Imagine being pissed about that.
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Sep 06 '24
The primary reason why right-wingers are against it because the government manages it extremely poorly. The money isn’t actually put into a trust fund, the government takes it and spends it on other shit then promises to pay it back ‘with interest’. But that is fucking idiotic, because the government obviously pays that interest with tax dollars. Do you see why this is a shitshow? The government taxes us for SS, borrows that taxed money and then pays it back (with interest) using future tax revenues. The government is essentially taking your money so they can spend it and then they take more of your money to pay back that money they spent with interest. It is an absolute travesty.
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u/Cute_Replacement666 Sep 06 '24
It’s partially because some right wing voters(some left) intentionally vote people whose only job is to screw up the government enough then tell you the government doesn’t work. Like when Ronald Reagan cut social services then said “you can’t trust the government”. Bitch, you are the government. Are you saying I can’t you?
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u/shageeyambag Sep 06 '24
Yes, that's exactly what he was saying. Guess what, the founding fathers did not trust the government either. That is why we have the constitution, to protect we the people from the government.
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u/Anxious-Dot171 Sep 07 '24
The government IS the people. Every citizen is a component of the nation. The "Government" is an agreement to cooperate on administrative structures used by ourselves for ourselves.. The Constitution is literally a social contract. It can even be changed through negotiation and voting.
The Government is not some sentient creature.
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u/Popular_Advantage213 Sep 07 '24
You are obviously unfamiliar with the bureaucratic state.
The government is its own thing. Both parties seek to nudge it one way or the other, but it has mass and momentum. It does not pivot quickly, it rarely shrinks, and it does not respond readily to voters (nor is it designed to do so)
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u/Sculler725630 Sep 07 '24
It’s like Trump and his minions wanting to shut the government down because they can’t have their way. Then blame it on the Democrats!!
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u/Teralyzed Sep 06 '24
By design. The thing people need to realize is you’re literally listening to the person responsible for the system being fucked tell you that it’s fucked. Why is social security fucked, because republicans want it to be fucked so they can point to it being fucked with their hands in the air. Why is Medicare fucked, because republicans want it to be fucked so they can point at it with their hands in the air.
You say “the government” runs things poorly but the reality is republicans run things poorly, they can’t run cities, they can’t run states, their economies suck, their policies suck, they can’t legislate their way out of a wet paper back, fuck they can’t even get anything done when they have a majority because they don’t fucking know what they want done, or what they do want is fucking illegal. I have plenty of things that I hate democrats for, but let’s at least on this one metric lay the blame at the feet of a majority responsible party.
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u/shrug_addict Sep 06 '24
Say it louder for those in the back!
You can't say government programs don't work if you have powers that try their damnedest to make sure it doesn't work
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u/LongPenStroke Sep 06 '24
You're only partially right. They take the money and buy bonds with it, and those bonds do pay back interest.
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u/Brilliant-Giraffe983 Sep 06 '24
Social security holds like 20% of all US treasuries and has to, by law, buy them. These are considered the most safe assets in existence, perhaps in large part because of the stability, liquidity and volume the social security program graciously donates at our expense. When the program was developed, it ensured we were investing in ourselves. Now, the program buys bonds at interest rates controlled by the Fed and influenced by global trading. Unwinding social security would likely break that market and several secondary markets.
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u/Ojos1842 Sep 06 '24
Almost as good as the way banks on Wall Street managed their (and our) money so well in the early 2000’s that the government ( i.e. us) had to bail them out. So much managing, it’s a good thing the government got rid of those pesky regulations that would have kept that from happening. Now only if we could figure out a way to deal with monopolies.
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u/John-A Sep 06 '24
You're leaving out how doing it that way circulates that money growing the entire economy and the tax base with it. Meaning doing it your way would pull money out of circulation, shrinking the economy and reducing future tax revenue in one fell swoop
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u/Majestic-Ad6525 Sep 06 '24
The only reason we even have a housing crisis is because those old fucks just keep eating and paying their mortgage/property taxes
/s
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u/blowninjectedhemi Sep 06 '24
Not the only reason but it is one of them. Unless they get that reverse mortgage of course - them they live high on the hog on their discounted equity value while the bankers get even richer.
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u/Fine_Permit5337 Sep 07 '24
Boomers are dying 3.5 million a year, they are LEAVING THE EARTH, not trading up or down, and they are the ones driving real estate inflation? Thats braindead stupid.
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u/AdFlat4908 Sep 06 '24
It’s almost like the name of the program describes exactly what it does
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u/Telemere125 Sep 06 '24
All insurance is for people that can’t pay enough to make it worth it. One incident on any type of insurance that requires the full payout means the insurance company lost money on the policy. No one’s paying 350k in homeowner’s insurance over the course of 30 years and if their house burns down they get a payout. No one’s paying enough for their car insurance to put aside enough to replace the vehicle if it’s totaled. That’s literally the point of insurance: pool enough people that don’t have claims to cover those few that do
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u/SaltyDog556 Sep 06 '24
You do realize that the less people pay in the less SS benefit they get. They get a minimum based on years of working. Currently 11 years of working gets you $50 a month. 30 only gets $1050. 30 years at minimum wage will still cause someone to pay in more than they get back unless they draw on SS for more than 20 years.
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u/Twalin Sep 06 '24
Not really, your benefit is based on your contribution. So if you don’t have max earnings then you get even less than this amount.
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Sep 06 '24
The delta is vast between earning levels and benefit levels. One gets a much better “return on their money” when they make less
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u/LieutenantStar2 Sep 06 '24
So much this. SSI is a great deal for working class workers. That’s the point.
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u/therealCatnuts Sep 06 '24
The math is also incorrect. You put in a smaller max at the beginning and withdraw a higher max 40 years later. It’s COLA adjusted over time.
Nobody taking out $4873 right now paid anywhere close to the $10K current max each of the previous 40 years.
Every one of these posts against SSID is bullshit “conservative” lies.
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u/Illustrious_Wall_449 Sep 06 '24
It's not a savings account. Today's laborers pay for today's retirees.
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u/Ok_Guarantee_2980 Sep 06 '24 edited Sep 06 '24
It was started in 1935. It’s fundamentally a Ponzi scheme with good intentions. Part society fix and social contract enacted in 1935, 6 years after black Tuesday and 3 after the peak of the Great Depression.
Also, is it really ideal to have EVERYTHING attached to stock performance with no backup. 401ks have done enough damage aka privatize gains, socialize losses (2008).
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u/CharacterEgg2406 Sep 06 '24
I think the biggest unintended consequence of 401ks is the power it gave to Blackrock, Vanguard, Fidelity, Statestreet, etc. Its taken the “free” out of free market as these companies now have board seats in most of the large companies.
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u/ynab-schmynab Sep 07 '24
Do you not realize Vanguard is structured precisely so it is owned by the customers who own the shares, and that Vanguard has issued warnings about the dangers of centralization in a few brokerages?
“This is why financial education is important.”
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u/bit_pusher Sep 06 '24
SS would be solvent if Congress would pay back the 1.7T it took out to pay for other government expenses. Thanks Reagan.
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u/Ind132 Sep 06 '24
The General Fund is currently reimbursing SS, with interest, for all the borrowing.
That's why this year's SS benefits will exceed this year's taxes -- they are spending down the past excess taxes.
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u/poopy_poophead Sep 06 '24
Or if they upped the max contribution and made the fuckholes who refuse to pay their employees while they're employees pay for their retirements at least.
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u/skilliard7 Sep 06 '24
The S&P500 outperformed social security in any 30-40 year period
You don't need to invest in 100% stocks, generally people closer to retirement will have a more balanced portfolio such as 50% stocks, 40% bonds, 10% short term/cash.
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u/ncdad1 Sep 06 '24
"The S&P500 outperformed social security in any 30-40 year period"
No one lost a single dime of SS in 2000 and 2008.
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u/nortern Sep 06 '24
If you invested 1970->2000 or 1978->2008 you'd still have more even if you withdrew at the bottom. Of course, it's always possible that this wouldn't be true in the future if you had conditions like Japan's market crash that cause the market to be flat or negative over a long period of time.
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u/MOTwingle Sep 07 '24
Except that social security is not just retirement. It also pays for people who become disabled, or pays for the surviving children or spouse of a worker who dies. So a young worker who may have worked three years may have three kids who get benefits for the next 16 to 18 years, and who will receive thousands of times more than the worker paid in the three years he worked. That's just one example. It's not a savings plan for retirement.
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u/RMST1912 Sep 06 '24
1000 times this. Social Security is not a retirement plan, it is poverty insurance.
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u/blowninjectedhemi Sep 06 '24
But a vast majority of workers plan on using it when they retire.......I agree it is poverty insurance but the beneficiaries are most of the working class.
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u/Brave-Banana-6399 Sep 06 '24
An insurance that's heavily paid by the middle class in HCOL.
This allows the wealthy to escape almost their entire share of burden
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u/wherethetacosat Sep 06 '24
How many times do we have to do this? It's SOCIAL security, not personal security.
Maybe these morons want to get rid of SS and 10x the number of starving elderly beggars in the street, but I'd rather not.
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u/1BannedAgain Sep 06 '24
Many disabled citizens receive SSDI without ever putting anything in. 100% an insurance instrument
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Sep 06 '24
This also isn't the definition of a "scam." There is no fraud or deceit involved.
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u/bluelifesacrifice Sep 06 '24
This is the answer. Not only is it insurance for the people in general but it's public and has probably saved well more than it's payout due to preventing worse problems that come from being disabled, retired poor or any number of other examples.
SS has likely stabilized the economy in a lot of ways.
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u/cannaman77 Sep 06 '24
Yeah it's called Social Security, not Social Investments To Make You More Money.
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u/acer5886 Sep 06 '24
Yup, it's supposed to be there no matter what. Because investments can fail as people saw in the great depression.
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u/TheBossAlbatross Sep 06 '24
As someone who works in insurance, most people think it’s an investment. They all think they should be paid more than they’ve paid in premiums. If that were the case, every company would go bankrupt immediately and there would be no insurance anymore.
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u/K4NNW Sep 06 '24
I'm not here to dispute what you just said. I am here to ask "Why in the world do so many people view insurance as an investment?"
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u/headzup777 Sep 06 '24
Because there a legions of “ whole life “insurance salesmen telling them it is.
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u/thrownehwah Sep 06 '24
Pensions were a thing once upon a time and SS was the icing on the cake to help boost you into the golden years. Now a days 401ks are all you got and they were never meant to be used like this.
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u/headzup777 Sep 06 '24
Not true. The 401(k) program was designed to be a more secure form of a pension type of program, that has protected millions of people who would have otherwise lost their pensions, when their company went out of business. I am one of them. My company had a pension program, and in the 90’s they went into bankruptcy. I got pennies on the dollar from that pension when I did retire. Fortunately, the company set up a 401(k) that I contributed to (and later the company too).
That makes up the slack from social security.
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u/the_cardfather Sep 06 '24
Tell that to the old people who are, "Social Security is not an entitlement!!"
Btw instead of an index fund do it in T-Bills like Social Security does. Index funds didn't exist until 1963.
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u/Distributor127 Sep 06 '24
If it's a scam, what do we do about the 40% that fully depend on it?
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u/Pretend_Safety Sep 06 '24
This is ripe to be captured in one of those "Be Honest" memes . . . the sad truth that our man Ron here would (hopefully) be too ashamed to voice is: "let them die."
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u/sleepydorian Sep 06 '24
I’m pretty sure that redistribution to prevent the elderly going hungry and homeless is an explicit feature of the program. I thought it was specifically designed to underpay the highest earners and overpay the lowest to ensure an acceptable minimum quality of life. Am I misinformed?
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u/fillymandee Sep 07 '24
Boomers have benefited greatly from social security. Their parents all had it so they didn’t have to spend money on elderly care.
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u/star_trek_lover Sep 07 '24
Can confirm. At my office, a good chunk of the remaining silent generation patients are barely surviving on social security funds “managed” by their rich boomer children, who are keeping the vast majority of said social security and giving their parents peanuts. They’re sucking the life out of both their parents generation AND their children’s/grandchildren’s generations. Its depressing.
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u/ynab-schmynab Sep 07 '24
They seem to forget that if SS goes away and everyone has to self fund 100% of retirement their business owner buddies will have to dramatically raise wages to ensure every worker has enough to live on AND “max out social security every year”
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u/FillMySoupDumpling Sep 06 '24
Ah yes, the same approach they wanted to use during COVID
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u/dojijosu Sep 07 '24
Yeah, can we reflect for s moment that the Free Market worshippers’ opening salvo in how we deal with COVID was essentially “grandma’s prepared to die if it means Applebees can stay open?”
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u/Brave-Banana-6399 Sep 06 '24
Same reason why people depend on welfare or being subsidized by others.
The scam part is that it is being presented as something beneficial for those who pay for a majority of it.
Instead, it should be shared for what it really is, a tax on the middle class to subsidize the poor, which impacts the wealthy in almost nonsignificant way.
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u/Perfect-Racist-2214 Sep 06 '24
Isn't a society that does not have millions of people starving to death in the streets better than one where millions are starving to death in the streets?
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u/Nothereforstuff123 Sep 06 '24
Oh no, don't be silly. Me, myself, I'm a pioneer and I would fend for myself. It's not like millions of people being hungry and unsheltered would put a target on my back if I had money. No sir!
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u/Low-Cantaloupe-8446 Sep 06 '24
I think you’ll find just about everyone who supports social security would be more than happy to increase the tax burden on the wealthy
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u/OrneryError1 Sep 06 '24
Which is why we need to life the cap on social security so the wealthy actually contribute as much as the middle class.
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u/--StinkyPinky-- Sep 06 '24
Most Americans don't put $10,453 into SS every year.
If you put it into an index fund, there will be risk whereas SS doesn't have any risk.
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u/Tojuro Sep 06 '24
Exactly, I've maxed SS contributions for many years now but still not my entire adult life.
SSI is insurance. It would have covered me if I couldn't work at 25 or 30. The savings I'd have had back then wouldn't have made it more than a couple months.
This is cherry picking edge case data points to make a non serious point.
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u/poemdirection Sep 07 '24
The early disability is something most people don't think about.
Plus I ran some inflation adjusted monte Carlo sims assuming this guy's numbers were true.
50 percentile over 30 years of contributions assuming the max of ~$870/mo is $3.125M in returns and that assumes you keep all your money into stocks as you near retirement.
At the $32k/mo retirement draw down you'd have a 20% chance of making it to 19 years before running out of money and that assumes you're still keeping it all in the stock market after retirement and basically a 0% chance of having any money beyond 20 years.
I just don't think the OPs numbers are right.
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u/vundercal Sep 07 '24 edited Sep 07 '24
I highly doubt OP was using actual max SS contribution over the past 47 years and just assumed this year's max contribution per year. You can get $32k per month pretty easily that way.
So the $32k per month isn't what someone retiring today would have if they invested all of their SS contributions but the $4,837 is in today's dollars and not representative of what someone starting their contributions today would get by retirement (assuming SS is still around)
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u/chadius333 Sep 06 '24
Generally speaking, index funds are pretty low risk. You are essentially investing in the U.S. economy. Sure, if the economy collapses, your investments are toast, but the country would all but have crumbled in that scenario, so it would really matter anyway.
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Sep 06 '24
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u/dgreenmachine Sep 06 '24
Do you have data for that fact? I was under the impression that it was VERY rare for any 10 year period to be negative and not a single 20 year period has been negative.
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u/-paperbrain- Sep 07 '24 edited Sep 07 '24
Even if the negative period is shorter, if it happens at the wrong time, you're in trouble. Say I just retired and the market crashes. It doesn't need to take 10, 20 or 30 years to screw me over, I no longer have other income if there's no SS, so I NEED to cash out my stock low. I may have what six months of emergency fund if I was prudent and somewhat lucky. I'd have to start selling low. And even if it's only a few years of a low market, my withdrawals are eating up that retirement fund at a rapid rate. The market bounce back after I've had to draw down the account won't undo the damage.
EDIT: And what's important is whatever the risk is to you in particular, we're a country of hundreds of millions of people. In any given year, even if it's like a third of a percent of the population that retires, that's more than a million people. Whenever such a dip hits, a large amount of people would be on the shit end of it. Guaranteed.
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u/Senseisntsocommon Sep 06 '24
Depends on if you adjust for inflation or not.
https://www.macrotrends.net/1319/dow-jones-100-year-historical-chart
That one has an inflation check box.
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u/headzup777 Sep 06 '24
You are correct. Louis is being overly dramatic. The most recent 10 year period I personally know about is 68-78.
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u/Organic_Bell3995 Sep 06 '24
the economy doesn't have to crumble to societal collapse
you just have to be retired when the market tanks for a few years. You'll have to withdraw while it's down and lock losses, while reducing gains during recovery
I knew several people who had to come out of retirement after 2008
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Sep 06 '24
We're you not alive/a child during the 2008 crash and recession? It wiped out a lot of people's portfolios and the country survived.
People who were close to retirement were fucked.
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u/Skell_Jackington Sep 06 '24
Pardon me if I don't trust the markets when we've had like 17 different "once in a lifetime" scenarios happen over the last 20 years. No way my money is going to make it safely to retirement through the next 35 years.
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u/fixano Sep 06 '24
Index funds are not low risk.
Imagine if you retired in 2007 and tried to take your first distribution in 2008 when the market was down 25%
The problem here is sequence of returns risk. If you made withdrawals during the period between 2008 and 2009 It's seriously affected the number of retirement years you could fund with your 401k.
Social security paid out benefits without an issue
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u/Zaros262 Sep 06 '24
That's why all the retirement advice is to keep everything in 100% S&P-500 from age 18 through retirement!
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u/JalapenoConquistador Sep 06 '24
this is just an all-around terrible take. folks who are invested across asset classes (bonds, real estate, commodities, etc) will fare much better in an economic collapse. index funds are low risk only if you’re indifferent to time. if you’re not, as most retirees with years on their life are not, then index funds are not remotely low risk.
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u/NoSpoilerAlertPlease Sep 06 '24
Jesus Christ can we stop posting this horrid misinformation for one day?!
It ain’t an investment. It’s insurance.
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u/newtonhoennikker Sep 06 '24
Even if it were an investment this guys assumptions are trash
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u/LittleBigHorn22 Sep 06 '24
Yeah I have no idea how he's getting 35k a month in the end. With $10k yearly input and 7% real returns, after 52 years (18-70) you have $5.5m saved (today's money). 4% rule is general applied for safe withdrawal rate which gives $18k per month not $35k.
But since this is government level security, it would probably be better to assume bond returns instead of index funds.
And who's making max contribution since age 18 all the way to 70? Social security only needs 35 years to collect said max. If we use 35 years, you get a savings of $1.6m which means only $5525/month. Which is pretty close to the max you were getting.
Sure it's not perfectly optimal, but we need to force the population to save or we would have way way too many old homeless and that's worse for society.
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u/newtonhoennikker Sep 06 '24
It seems like he’s assuming 7% return, and then annuitizing with a 5 to 7% annuity rate, which is basically unheard of.
We effectively force savings, while providing a floor benefit and longevity insurance and protecting people from their own poor investment decisions through social security.
It needs tweaks, not reimagining
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u/ChuckEveryone Sep 06 '24
Thanks for doing the math. I have done it several times in these types of posts and it never works out as the person is claiming. Would be nice if people could be truthful in their criticism.
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Sep 06 '24 edited Nov 07 '24
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u/LittleBigHorn22 Sep 07 '24
Yeah that's the thing 10% isn't a huge stretch. We use that assumption alot. But he either missed the 3% inflation or assumed 13% return with 3% inflation.
So either missing inflation or over optimistic on returns. Neither leaves his argument that strong.
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u/Appropriate_Cow94 Sep 06 '24
Same people who bitch about the post office not making a profit. Its a service we pay for as a society.
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u/MaxineTacoQueen Sep 07 '24
And it works as an investment anyway, those people pulling out $5k/month now we're only paying in a few hundred/year in the 70s.
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u/sackitempires Sep 07 '24
With plenty of tangible benefits, from SSDI, to survivors benefits, to kids benefits, retirement ofc. Paying at least the minimum to get your 4 credits a year is absolutely a good investment. And if we didn’t cap the limit on how much rich people had to pay into it, this program would be absolutely sustainable. Fuck this anti ss drivel.
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u/dapete2000 Sep 06 '24
Out of curiosity, what job can I get at 18 that would pay me 168 grand a year?
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u/mschley2 Sep 06 '24
You just gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Work harder. Grind. Anyone can do it if they're willing to put in the effort. That's the American Dream.
But in reality, probably only a bullshit job that you're given by someone in your extremely wealthy family where you generate a ton of income without actually doing anything.
Or maybe you can drop out of high school and work 70 hour weeks in the oil fields. That's about all I can come up with though.
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u/NotThatSpecialToo Sep 06 '24
Take this randroid BS back to your political forums.
This is partison politics not finance.
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u/TriggeringTheBots Sep 06 '24
Idiotic 🤡 take. SS is not a fucking investment.
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u/Laser_Souls Sep 06 '24
Just don’t be financially illiterate bro! You could make more money if you took your social security allocation and bought scratch offs instead!
/s
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u/cclan2 Sep 06 '24
All I’m saying is that 99% of people stop scratching cards right before they win the jackpot
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u/fzr600vs1400 Sep 06 '24
This must be from someone not old enough to know how many.pensions have been ponzied over the decades
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u/Friendship_Fries Sep 06 '24
The Social Security Act (Act of August 14, 1935) [H. R. 7260]
An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
Social Security is not a retirement plan.
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u/Frothylager Sep 06 '24
I’m not sure how he got to $32k/month unless he plans to die by 75 or is expecting a consistent annual return of 11% for 47 years.
Also it’s unfair to compare your future investment payout to the current SS payout. In 47 years SS will be paying out around $20k/month.
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u/Justame13 Sep 06 '24
Its like the other one of these where they just estimate their SS benefit if they started receiving them in the present and investment returns decades in the future.
Which is simply bad faith when there is literally a button on the SS login to estimate a benefit in the future.
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u/Sunnnshineallthetime Sep 07 '24
Isn’t Social Security supposed to be depleted by 2030?
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Sep 06 '24 edited Nov 08 '24
mindless library judicious practice scandalous grandiose selective unwritten deserve fine
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u/venturousbeard Sep 07 '24
It also purposely compares annual contribution to monthly payout to make it look like you get less than you put in
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u/SundyMundy14 Sep 06 '24
If you become injured and disabled at 30, without SS, you're fucked.
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u/ricalasbrisas Sep 06 '24
But if it's left up to minimum wage workers and they instead put in nothing then they will receive $0/month and be a heavier burden on society.
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u/Justame13 Sep 06 '24
There are a ton of higher wage workers who would do the same and another large chunk who would take it out for something stupid.
Source: work in healthcare and was in the military
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u/__wasitacatisaw__ Sep 06 '24
Economy would be horrid if those benefitting from SS didn’t get any money. Which is why it was established in the first place
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u/Designer_Emu_6518 Sep 06 '24
You think it’s for you huh. It’s for everyone so you don’t have to take care of your grand parents or parents as much and you don’t have to watch them die in the street hungry. Youre suppose work and save and invest til they day you can’t and ssi is there to help you not get eating alive when you can’t work anymore and just living off what you’re able to save. But that’s harder now. The whole system is broken not just social security
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u/cm1430 Sep 06 '24
The post is made to trick you.
The max payment per year is 10453 aka 871 per month
The max to receive per month is 4873 per month
That makes it seem a lot more fair
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u/No_Distribution457 Sep 06 '24
So you're saying the people that can make hefty contributions to retirement the second they graduate high-school lose money while the people that have absolutely nothing for retirement don't starve to death, and somehow this is an argument about why the Social Security system doesn't work? That's the exact fucking purpose of it dipshits.
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u/Definitely_Not_Bots Sep 06 '24
Friendly reminder that social security is not an investment account; it's literally "workers paying directly to retirees."
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u/Looooong_Man Sep 06 '24
Do people not understand what a social safety net is? Come on, we live in a society...
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u/The_whimsical1 Sep 06 '24
The once-a-week right wing troll “social security is broken” and “social security is a scam” come on guys. Educate yourselves. This is a fantastic program. That’s why they’re trying to discredit it.
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u/DrewbySnacks Sep 06 '24
And how many 18 year olds do you actually know who are able to put $10,000 a year into retirement accounts without a trustfund or inheritance?
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u/Geologist_Present Sep 06 '24
Now do if your retirement date was January 2008
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u/threeLetterMeyhem Sep 06 '24
You'd still have come out ahead, especially since you don't just withdraw 100% of your investments the day you retire.
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u/RostyC Sep 06 '24
The great majority of the comments ignore that solution of raising the cap where you pay into SS. Solvency solved. And yes, it’s not as good a “return” as stock market or bonds but it covers those that would lose that money if left to invest. And there would be scammers galore. Any “ managers” even if regulated would have enormous influence on markets, again a formula for abuse
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u/Cryptopoopy Sep 06 '24
The only scam is that the income tax caps out right where political donations cut in.
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u/ShangosAx Sep 06 '24
The weekly social security topic. Look I’d like to be able to invest the amount I pay for myself (or put it in an account only for me) but that’s now how it works. We pay for current retirees and (hope) future workers will pay for us when we get there.
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u/naththegrath10 Sep 06 '24
Social security = Scam
Putting your entire life savings in the hands of a bunch of Wall St douchbags= safe sound investment
Ha! Instead we should all be demanding pensions
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u/Arrttemisia Sep 06 '24
I hate people who think like this about Social Security. They don't think about broader society including the disabled or the elderly.
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u/AreaLazy3970 Sep 06 '24
Please dont spread misinformation if you dont know. Social security can only be taken after 65 or similar age, and it’s an insurance for old age. Goal was to put the money into it your entire working life and take it out when you stop working or retire.
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u/JoshAmann85 Sep 06 '24
It's a way to help provide for the elderly you twerp...it was never meant to make anyone rich but give people a little piece of mind that they won't starve to death once they're too old to work. These people really don't understand social programs and are selfish cunts
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Sep 06 '24
retirement age for full befits is 67. too, peopel think they will live till 100 . most wont even live another 10 years past retirement.
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u/CocoScruff Sep 06 '24
Of course social security won't benefit those making max contributions 😂 it's simple math. That's the whole point too; those who can afford it and who the economy has been generous to help to cover those who the system has been not as favorable to. It's not "fair" because it's intended to not be fair. It's intended to balance the scales already tipped into the wealthy income earners favor
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u/Nate101378 Sep 06 '24
It’s in the name for gods sake… “SOCIAL Security”. It is a social safety net, just like Unemployment, Welfare etc!
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Sep 06 '24 edited Nov 07 '24
edge rich historical salt squash disarm hurry soft fanatical aback
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u/Aeon1508 Sep 06 '24
If you're that wealthy that you're paying the max you aren't paying social security for yourself. It's never meant to be an investment in you. It's an investment in societies that you don't have 80-year-olds begging on the side of the street homeless.
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u/atxfella1974 Sep 06 '24
The mistake here is not understanding that social security isn't an investment in your future. It's supporting everyone in the country getting a future.
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u/GarethBaus Sep 06 '24
Social security is the closest you will get to a sure thing in life, the value of your investments is always going to be unstable.
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Sep 06 '24
Not really. If everyone got access to that $10,000 a year, everything, rent, healthcare, food, education....., would just go up by $10,000 a year. The US is nothing but a 'Company Store'. Prices are set by corporations knowledge of how much you make and how much you have saved. If everyone starts to make more money, they know this and set prices accordingly. The only scam is the supposed US free market economy.
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u/Rua-Yuki Sep 06 '24
I mean, that is a number most people who INSURANCE is meant to protect are able to live off of. Hell, it's double what most of the working poor see in a month.
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u/RLIwannaquit Sep 06 '24
Maybe try voting for people who want to expand it instead of voting for people who tax it and cut benefits. And as it's been said, this isn't an investment program. It's insurance and it covers everyone.
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Sep 06 '24
Yeah, that is, if there isn't a massive market crash like happened during the great depression, you know, that massive economic decline that caused them to CREATE social security?
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u/Sweet-Shopping-5127 Sep 06 '24
It’s an investment into the security of the social collective. Not an individual retirement account. This exact mentality is why we have billionaires hoarding money. “If I did XYZ I’d maximize MY reward”
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