Social Security

Quote from Free Thinker:

unless you are self employed as a trader as most on et should be. then you pay nothing.
even if you are self employed as a trader it is important that you find a way to pay in enough to qualify for ss.

the govt does not consider it "self employed." Employment is not the same as managing your own investments. And you generally get back from SS based on what you pay in. There is not a minimum so you get what someone who payed in for 30 years gets.
 
Quote from JoePaterno:

the govt does not consider it "self employed." Employment is not the same as managing your own investments. And you generally get back from SS based on what you pay in. There is not a minimum so you get what someone who payed in for 30 years gets.
there is a minimum you must pay in to qualify.
 
Quote from peilthetraveler:

Average person makes about 50k per year. SS taxes are 6.2% meaning the average person puts $3100 per year or about $250 per month into it. Assumming no inflation that would mean the average person working over 40 years puts $124k into it. The average person claims SS at 65 and the average american dies at 78 which means 13 years to collect benefits. So if there was no inflation and no interest earned on that money collected, SS breaks even paying out $794 per month. Obviously with inflation, and interest earned on the money in the SS account, they can pay more when you finally retire.

Social security, as you can see isnt really a ponzi, its just a forced community savings account where you lose everything you put in if you die before 62 (or 65 or whatever age you choose to collect)

uhh, Social Security doesn't earn interest.. it's a pass through thing, they take in money and pay it out, they don't invest it at all...
 
Quote from Eight:

uhh, Social Security doesn't earn interest.. it's a pass through thing, they take in money and pay it out, they don't invest it at all...

That is absolutely and categorically incorrect. The Social Security Trust Fund earns interest on the government securities it is invested in. Up until the present time, the social security system has had a huge surplus of revenue over benefits paid out and that surplus is invested in interest paying government securities. When politicians talk about the government borrowing from social security they are talking about those securities bought by the social security administration. That is the mechanism the government uses to borrow from the trust fund. (Killing people in Iraq is very, very expensive. It costs the US taxpayers over 7 million dollars per each man, women, child and baby they kill in Iraq. So it is easy to see why the government needs to borrow so much money from the Trust Fund!)

It is astounding how much misinformation is out there re social security, How on earth do these crazy ideas get started and promulgated?
 
Today there is a story on Yahoo Re payback of social security benefits received before the regular retirement age. For example, if you had elected to draw social security at age 62, and later at age 65 changed your mind, you could pay back benefits already received and start getting a check that would be about 25% greater. You would also get a tax credit for any income taxes paid on the earlier benefits paid back.

What caught my eye was this statement:

"The strategy has gained popularity as retirees realized that it is cheaper to repay Uncle Sam and lock in inflation-adjusted payments for life than it is to buy a similar amount of guaranteed income in the form of an annuity from an insurance company."

Americans badly need to start recognizing what a good deal they are getting from Social Security and stop bitching about it.

Incidentally, The option of redoing your social security payments after twelve months has elapsed is about to go away.
 
Quote from thecalip:

The government does not need our tax money. They have the printing press, they can just print what they need.

Presume you believe this and are not just being sarcastic. If so, DUNCE CAP FOR YOU.
 
Quote from MattF:

"... Man my generation is gonna be so screwed....they have NO idea....

The only generation which is not "so screwed"... is the one before the Boomers...
 
Is it possible the obsession with "retirement" is some type of mass delusion or mental illness? Where in human history is there a divine right to a "retirement".

U work try to have a good life then when the time comes you die. The retirement is the great carrot that the corporate-state uses to motivate individuals to slave away doing meaningless work for the majority of their lives.

It is much like the healthcare issue. We live in the safest time in human history yet people are obsessed with healthcare. Our forefathers would laugh at what girlymen most of us have become.
 
Quote from Free Thinker:

there is a minimum you must pay in to qualify.

yes. and that qualifies you for the minimum amount. Is there somehow something in my poost that did not get this across???
 
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