SS will never go bankrupt as long as welfare, food stamps, HUD rentals, free medical payments, on and on and on, continue unabated. Difference is, one is for folks who, mostly, worked from teen to retirement, the other is for people who have lived off the government for their birth, milk, diapers, rent, utilities, pocket money, on and on, many of whom, who’ve never worked a day in their lives. Go to the SS office; there’s more young people filing for SS disability than seniors! No politician in his right mind will mess with Social Security as long as their paid voters don’t get messed with.
Corbin L Douthitt
1 year ago
SS ” advisors” cannot advise you to do anything. They can tell you what your options are. I don’t think that the “SS was never supposed to be your sole source of retirement income’ statement is defensible- When started- it was the ONLY source of retirement income for 99% of the country. 90% only knew at what age they could start drawing the $$. If SSA could advice- correctly every time- then there would be no need for SS attorneys or advisor that you PAY for advice (like Medicare).Solvency? ludicrous!- We always have BILLIONS to give away on programs like bailing out student loan defaults-or giving away to other countries that hate us- so I do not see us shutting down SS. America would revolt. Democrats always trot that argument out to scare SS recipients into voting Democrat. Voting Democrat is treason!
Remember in November!
CRAIG OTTO
1 year ago
How many know that Congress and THE DEMOCRATS TOOK IOU’S OUT of SS for YEARS and OWE THE MONEY! SS was SOLVENT until 2092 but because these 2 GROUPS kept taking MONEY out, this is why it’s good until a certain year? It’s time for them to PAYBACK or CANCEL CONGRESS and DEMOCRATS RETIREMENTS and take their MONEY! That INCLUDES “IDIOT PRESIDENTS and their CRIMMINAL CABINETS!
Gene Gourdeau
1 year ago
I am a CPA and the SSA should have free classes on SS benefits starting at age 50. They should have more advisors to explain the options. There are planning options that expired, but some are still there such as younger spouse possibly claiming benefits when older spouse does on their account, then the younger spouse at their retirement age paying back their payments and then collecting the higher retirement age benefits.
Melinda K Clark
1 year ago
my husband has been trying to get disability for 2 and a half yrs, had to fire the first lawyer-he did NOTHING. They would not answer the phone for 6 months, said they sent a denial letter and we know that they did not but we had to start the process all over again. My husband can’t work, they took his money and now won’t give it to him when he needs it.
Kim Donoho Bowen
1 year ago
All of the above and above all….quit giving benefits that people BELIEVE they have paid in for THEIR retirement to people who have never paid in. That should be from a different fund, such as welfare. Put Social Security BACK into a separate account the way it started out and NOT in the general fund to be used by those who can’t get funding for the projects they want.
Randall McCraney
1 year ago
The correct answer is “all of the above”! The SS Administration should be an advocate for retirees making certain that they get all the benefits coming to them. Currently they just act as a FAQ.
Getpun
1 year ago
Do away with the windfall elimination provision penalties for state and government workers that have private sector earnings.
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1 year ago
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1 year ago
testing a comment
Joe
1 year ago
The sad thing about SS is the fact that the federal government has zero obligation to pay it to you, not to mention, they can and do utilize SS dollars for their pet projects. And people wonder why it’s loosing money just like every other government run business.
Charles
1 year ago
The SSA is hoping people will opt to wait until later to begin collecting so that most will actually die before they recoup what they didn’t collect between 62 and 67. The downside is that for many this is their only source of income in retirement and they need the higher monthly benefit.
The worst part is that this is the biggest ponzie scheme fostered upon the American people and it was done by our government who then put Bernie Madoff in prison for the same thing bit on a much smaller scale.
L
1 year ago
Keep working after you get SS.
wade c mackey
1 year ago
Being honest/truthful about insolvency is a variation on the theme of DRAIN THE SWAMP;
EdS
1 year ago
Strongly suggest….wake up and realize, this SS is a scam, generated and supervised by politicians that are in power AND, awaiting reelection!!
Steve Ridgway
1 year ago
The fake jan 6 committee has countless times said…”we are way ahead of the justice dept”!! ADAM…. HE WAS THE LIAR WHO, FOR A YEAR AND MANY MONTHS SAID HE HAD POSITIVE EVIDENCE D. TRUMP WAS GUILTY OF SLEEPING WITH COMMUNIST RUSSIA……YOU KNOW…RUSSIA..RUSSIA..RUSSIA…
.AND GUESS WHAT??… THAT….THAT..DIDN’T HAPPEN!!!!!!!! YOU PUNK COMMITTEE CHILDREN JUST NEED TO BRING PRESIDENT TRUMP
.(.GO SUPER MAGA..).UP ON CHARGES. THEY SAY THEY ARE WAY AHEAD OF JUSTICE DEPT
…MY GRANDCHILDREN ARE WAY AHEAD OF JUSTICE DEPT…..WHICH IS QUITE SIMPLE TO DO WITH MARXIST GUTLESS IDIOT GARLAND HOLDING THE CHAIR. SHAMLESS BUNCH OF JUVENILE SISSY LOSERS..JUST LIKE THE FAKE PRESIDENT!!
L
1 year ago
They don’t care as they don’t need social security like the rest of us will.
V Russell
1 year ago
Politicians don’t care about their slaves! Especially the Democrats, they believe they are entitled to all WE work for! I doubt they will do anything to change the double taxing and stealing what we have all worked for. They want to give to people who have done nothing. People need to pay attention to who they are voting for! It’s time for us to start asking them the hard questions everyone seems so fearful to ask. Vetting them before they get elected, holding them to their promises. If we don’t this country is doomed to fail!
April Dykes
1 year ago
Pass no-nonsense legislation to keep the government from “borrowing” from it?
BEA
1 year ago
Hmm, we pay taxes on our monies going into SS from our paychecks and then we PAY tax on the social security check we receive. DOUBLE tax. Why? Sounds illegal !
George Hotaling
1 year ago
JFK and LBJ started raiding SS with the promise that it would be paid back, in full! They used the money for their pie in the sky social programs which only cause fewer people to seek employment because they are being sustained by the nations workers!
Tobyard
1 year ago
Both parties are paid by taxpayers, make on average more than taxpayers, get 100% of their pay for retirement from taxpayers, but continue to rip off SS from taxpayers then ask taxpayers for extra money to fund their “efforts” to represent us taxpayers. We are chumps.
Donald Colongeli
1 year ago
Don’t agree with any of it. The SS fund is funded into perpetuity. If the government employees stopped giving themselves raises and quit raiding the SS fund, there would be plenty to go all the way around.
Randall
1 year ago
Should a retiree risk OASDI solvency, delaying past age 62 and receiving a fraction of designated benefits?
D. Ragon
1 year ago
Help Eliminate the social security windfall act for police and others. Why do we get screwed over and the gov gives illegal aliens free social security
Michael Peck
1 year ago
If there had been an option to have better information provided concerning the reduction of benefits from continuing to work, id retired at 62, AND how that ceases at Full Retirement Age. You can draw full benefits at FRA and continue working with no reduction of the current benefit.
If you are thinking of continuing to work and begin collecting benefits at 70, your benefit is higher, but not enough to justify leaving the money in the program.
People MUST understand that any funds undistributed at death are not part of your estate. In that case, the beneficiary is the US Treasury.
Get all of your money out as quickly a possible. If you are working and don’t need the cash, invest it so it does become part of your estate, in the event you die before 70. The higher benefit in that case is only to the Treasury, not your children or other beneficiaries.
Brutus
1 year ago
It is sad to see so many readers who think SS is ‘fixable”, or even worth saving! When are we going to wake up to the reality that Socialism in any form, no matter how well intentioned, sucks! It is guaranteed to fail because it denies human nature. It is antithetical to a republican, law based form of government, which our Constitution calls for, Art 4, Sec 4.
It will always degenerate into more totalitarian forms of government; communism, Marxism. It only benefits the power holders. The great 19th century French libertarian economist Frederic Bastiat said it best; “The State is that is that great fiction by which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else.” I heartily recommend his great work “The Law”, published just before his untimely death in 1849. It is less than 100 pages and available on line for free as it is in the public domain. In very plain language it blows the whole silly utopian socialist nonsense out of the water! If it were the only textbook used in a H.S. level economics course, it would cure everyone of the “Free Lunch” syndrome……..of course present day “edjookayshun” has reduced the average vocabulary to only 200 or 300 words, so a vocabulary building course would be in order! Set yourself free. Get off the government plantation. Begin with your mind.
Rob
1 year ago
The only folks benefitting by waiting until you reach 70 to draw SS, are the government. If you wait until age 70 to draw your SS, you DO RECEIVE larger payments. However, by not starting to receive benefits earlier, you leave enormous amounts “on the table” and untouched. Imagine drawing $1500 monthly at age 62. That equates to $18,000 annually. Waiting until you’re 70, means you leave $18,000 annually, or a total of $144,000 (18,000 per year times 8 years) in the government coffers. You’ll need to live into your late 80s to recoup the money you didn’t draw starting at 62. You’re betting against the reaper, and the government wants you to wait, betting you’ll die younger than that.
Faith Rose
1 year ago
All the above would be helpful. For instance, I had to retire at 62. It was explained that my benefits were reduced. But not that it was permanently reduced.
In addition, I have
heard of people, even teenagers, who got “temporary” SSI, and did not get off it.
Mark
1 year ago
Social Security Administration employees are required to tell people that they’ll earn more if they delay their retirement to age 70. On its face, that is accurate, but many do not make it to that age, look at the actuarial tables, or you may have immediate needs for income. Retiring at 62 requires a healthy income stream from investments to offset the 50% hit you will take, but “Full Retirement” at what ever age you’re allowed to retire, 65 in my case, will net me more money for 22 years before I will ever see the impact of retiring at 75% instead of 100%.
When an acquaintance who worked for SSA retired early, I asked “what’s up with that?, you’ve always told us to wait”. He said he had to tell us that, but now that he’s retired, he can tell us to do the math. I did, and put all the number in an Excel spreadsheet and charted the retirement incomes over time base on age of retirement. He is correct. I will be 87 years old before retiring at 65 will result in a reduction in income versus retiring at 70.
Henry C Jeffs
1 year ago
My wife is collecting SSI @ 65 YO I am 67 and would like to collect as well. I am the higher earner and will collect more. Does her income or mine affect the amount we will receive? Since I am over the FRA and wish to continue working does that impact her SSI
William A Perkins
1 year ago
1. Stop lying
2. Stop politician’s from stealing the money paid into SS
Susan Gilchrist
1 year ago
The way I see it, IF the amount of money they took from my paychecks had been invested each year, there would be enough to pay for my benefit now. There would even be enough to pay for veterans who sacrificed their life/health to serve our country. However, when the government gets money it rarely turns out good. They took from SS funds when other funds were in need. That should have never been allowed to happen. It is not called a “tax.” It wasn’t their money. It is my money (in theory). In essence, they took from me with the promise that I’ll get something in return… (but not so much.) That is what is frustrating.
Alright Already
1 year ago
SSA should have NEVER been given to foreigners who NEVER PUT INTO IT!! Politicians should have NOT used Social Security money for other things. SSA money should have NEVER been given to those that NEVER put into it from the very beginning!!! Then, SSI just became RIDICULOUS!!! …Handed out like free water!! Now, by the time we get started getting it, it will be GONE!!! ????????????
Don
1 year ago
Explain the pyramid nature of the funding of Social Security, than makes it financially insolvent.
Outline the Constitutional basis for a federal entitlement program (which I do not believe exists).
Peggy ONeil
1 year ago
Fight to get funds back that were used earlier for other programs! We have paid into Social Security for our retirement not for it to be funding some other cause!
Liam
1 year ago
Social security is nothing less than a Ponzi scheme. If I’m not mistaken, when the program was first implemented, there were 28 people paying into the system for every recipient. Today, I believe that number is now less than 2. Just as with the Ponzi scheme, that number will soon be down to a negative factor of those paying in, and just like the Ponzi scheme, the system will go bust and will be nothing more than an albatross around peoples’ necks.
Patriot
1 year ago
Social Security replaced welfare. When I went to my local office to arrange for benefits years ago, the room was full of people with children. If it went solely to retired people who paid into it, and was invested wisely, we wouldn’t have a problem. Social Security should not go to the disabled or the minor children of widows. Also, it started as a 1% tax but currently is 15% (half paid by an employer.) High earners must pay into it but will probably never see benefits in the future. Social Security should be optional and privately run by a reputable investment company or banks. Like all other Government programs there is billions lost to fraud.
Richard A Kampa
1 year ago
Considering that even FDR knew this would have to be renegotiated years later around the 60’s and it never was. I don’t see how this can continue at it current rate especially with the inflation that is coming in the next few years.
Allan E Brem
1 year ago
I would not expect any government entity to be forthcoming and honest with we the people.
Wilfred L. Davis Jr
1 year ago
As I understand it, President Lyndon Johnson allowed Congress to BORROW money from the Social Security Fund to put in the general fund. I also understand not only has Congress not paid most of or any of the money back but has allowed people not entitled to that money to get it. Then the Social Security Administration doesn’t keep very good records of deceased people thus sending deceased people monthly Social Security checks, therefore unwilling or unable or a combination thereof to collect the monies that should not have been sent in the first place. Back to the BORROWING and NON REPAYMENT, isn’t that called or could be referred to as EMBEZZLEMENT?
TO A BROADER POINT, WHY SHOULD CONGRESS GIVE A DAMN ABOUT US ANYWAY, THEY ARE AND ARE GOING TO BE TAKEN CARE OF JUST BY THE NATURE OF THEIR JOB.
Ty Caudill
1 year ago
The truth is that ever since the government declared the savings plan started by President Rosevelt, that was to be voluntary and held by the government, like a bank, as a savings program for retirement.
Over the years the government saw the voluntary savings as a mandatory program, but not a tax. However, that fund became the bucket for supporting people who may not have contributed anything, as a social crutch and when LBJ was in office they moved the funds into the general accounts and it became a tax and the money used as inacted by congress.
The downfall of the social security program happened during the Obama years, when Social Security became an entitlement program. You didn’t have a social security savings program, it became an entitlement program that anyone could apply for and receive, but by then it was drained.
The next purge is the Cares Act where the United States was to right the losses to American workers and helping to rebuild business effected by Covid and the mandatory business closures forced on American corporations, companies and small businesses. Instead the Biden administration backed up failed retirement and their investment firms by providing the Unions, who made the bad investments, money to save union retirement programs, not the social security program. A savings program, now a tax, payed by American workers, that is being doled out to failed union retirement programs, who supported the DNC and their only choice, controllable teleprompter Biden. They did not think about the tax paying American people who paid into a retirement savings plan or indicate any plan to use these funds to revamp the losses in the social security program.
Biden has read many times that he is not afraid of people blaming his administration for the near or maybe already in, ression, or that inflation sits at arecord high, never reached in American history, along with a stock marked that may lose many more billions of dollars world wide, not just in America, because he is helping people. So, ask yourselves who are these people he is helping, have you been helped. The people he is helping, are the unions, not the over all American public. Its the union investors who needed a bailout and that’s the people he is concerned about, not the tax payers who worked for 40 to 50 years and depending on social security to live out their retirement years. These Americans paid for this plan and the Democrates who originally started it as a savings plan, have made in a tax and now paying for votes from unions!
Thelma Thomas
1 year ago
Id like to see people actually get back what they have paid in plus interest.
And those that die before using up their benefits should be able to assign them to a beneficiary. Also the minimum should be a livable amount.
Quit drawing money out of our investments to fund all the little political pet projects.
I have a friend that loves math and figured that if he had saved what he put into social security from the time he was 16 til he was 65, earning only minimumwages all those years and figuring the interest rates as they changed over the years. He would have had over 2 million dollars in his account. The power of compounding! But how many die and never claim a penny? Its our money, not the governments! we should have a say in how it is used!
fred
1 year ago
How about adding food, energy and medical to the COLA.
Wayne Koster
1 year ago
How about stopping the double tax we pay on social security
Kate H
1 year ago
My hubby recently stood in line for 3 hours to get a SS benefits verification letter for a loan. (he locked himself out of online acct! Ugh!) He said 75% were foreigners between ages of 20-40. Why are they giving our hard earned money to those coming here illegally? Makes my BP go up.
Brual
1 year ago
All the above and many more. But then, this is a rather misguided poll question. IMHO.
Devan95
1 year ago
actually none of the above. what we need is a private option. We should have the option of making deposits to a private bank or investment clmoany. And how is it this is a mandatory ptogram? how is it constitional?
Harry Lade
1 year ago
Added: you have to raise the age where you can collect (based on current mortality, not when the program started), or increase payments in…politically unacceptable to those who want to keep their phony baloney jobs. I favor paying this on all earned income, without regard to the age you earn it or the amount you earn.
Harry Lade
1 year ago
Politicians broke the system when they robbed the trust fund “to eliminate the deficit” under Reagan. Also, they continued to rob it over the years by expanding who was eligible to collect, for example, SSI. If you’re an “alcoholic”, or you have a “bad back” and can’t work or a myriad of other so called disabilities, you can qualify. That puts a drain on the program giving money to folks who likely never paid in or made very little payment over their working lives. How much better would everyone be had we had to make savings into a 401k? What about the poor guy who didn’t have the discipline to save? Give them welfare.
SS will never go bankrupt as long as welfare, food stamps, HUD rentals, free medical payments, on and on and on, continue unabated. Difference is, one is for folks who, mostly, worked from teen to retirement, the other is for people who have lived off the government for their birth, milk, diapers, rent, utilities, pocket money, on and on, many of whom, who’ve never worked a day in their lives. Go to the SS office; there’s more young people filing for SS disability than seniors! No politician in his right mind will mess with Social Security as long as their paid voters don’t get messed with.
SS ” advisors” cannot advise you to do anything. They can tell you what your options are. I don’t think that the “SS was never supposed to be your sole source of retirement income’ statement is defensible- When started- it was the ONLY source of retirement income for 99% of the country. 90% only knew at what age they could start drawing the $$. If SSA could advice- correctly every time- then there would be no need for SS attorneys or advisor that you PAY for advice (like Medicare).Solvency? ludicrous!- We always have BILLIONS to give away on programs like bailing out student loan defaults-or giving away to other countries that hate us- so I do not see us shutting down SS. America would revolt. Democrats always trot that argument out to scare SS recipients into voting Democrat. Voting Democrat is treason!
Remember in November!
How many know that Congress and THE DEMOCRATS TOOK IOU’S OUT of SS for YEARS and OWE THE MONEY! SS was SOLVENT until 2092 but because these 2 GROUPS kept taking MONEY out, this is why it’s good until a certain year? It’s time for them to PAYBACK or CANCEL CONGRESS and DEMOCRATS RETIREMENTS and take their MONEY! That INCLUDES “IDIOT PRESIDENTS and their CRIMMINAL CABINETS!
I am a CPA and the SSA should have free classes on SS benefits starting at age 50. They should have more advisors to explain the options. There are planning options that expired, but some are still there such as younger spouse possibly claiming benefits when older spouse does on their account, then the younger spouse at their retirement age paying back their payments and then collecting the higher retirement age benefits.
my husband has been trying to get disability for 2 and a half yrs, had to fire the first lawyer-he did NOTHING. They would not answer the phone for 6 months, said they sent a denial letter and we know that they did not but we had to start the process all over again. My husband can’t work, they took his money and now won’t give it to him when he needs it.
All of the above and above all….quit giving benefits that people BELIEVE they have paid in for THEIR retirement to people who have never paid in. That should be from a different fund, such as welfare. Put Social Security BACK into a separate account the way it started out and NOT in the general fund to be used by those who can’t get funding for the projects they want.
The correct answer is “all of the above”! The SS Administration should be an advocate for retirees making certain that they get all the benefits coming to them. Currently they just act as a FAQ.
Do away with the windfall elimination provision penalties for state and government workers that have private sector earnings.
test
testing a comment
The sad thing about SS is the fact that the federal government has zero obligation to pay it to you, not to mention, they can and do utilize SS dollars for their pet projects. And people wonder why it’s loosing money just like every other government run business.
The SSA is hoping people will opt to wait until later to begin collecting so that most will actually die before they recoup what they didn’t collect between 62 and 67. The downside is that for many this is their only source of income in retirement and they need the higher monthly benefit.
The worst part is that this is the biggest ponzie scheme fostered upon the American people and it was done by our government who then put Bernie Madoff in prison for the same thing bit on a much smaller scale.
Keep working after you get SS.
Being honest/truthful about insolvency is a variation on the theme of DRAIN THE SWAMP;
Strongly suggest….wake up and realize, this SS is a scam, generated and supervised by politicians that are in power AND, awaiting reelection!!
The fake jan 6 committee has countless times said…”we are way ahead of the justice dept”!! ADAM…. HE WAS THE LIAR WHO, FOR A YEAR AND MANY MONTHS SAID HE HAD POSITIVE EVIDENCE D. TRUMP WAS GUILTY OF SLEEPING WITH COMMUNIST RUSSIA……YOU KNOW…RUSSIA..RUSSIA..RUSSIA…
.AND GUESS WHAT??… THAT….THAT..DIDN’T HAPPEN!!!!!!!! YOU PUNK COMMITTEE CHILDREN JUST NEED TO BRING PRESIDENT TRUMP
.(.GO SUPER MAGA..).UP ON CHARGES. THEY SAY THEY ARE WAY AHEAD OF JUSTICE DEPT
…MY GRANDCHILDREN ARE WAY AHEAD OF JUSTICE DEPT…..WHICH IS QUITE SIMPLE TO DO WITH MARXIST GUTLESS IDIOT GARLAND HOLDING THE CHAIR. SHAMLESS BUNCH OF JUVENILE SISSY LOSERS..JUST LIKE THE FAKE PRESIDENT!!
They don’t care as they don’t need social security like the rest of us will.
Politicians don’t care about their slaves! Especially the Democrats, they believe they are entitled to all WE work for! I doubt they will do anything to change the double taxing and stealing what we have all worked for. They want to give to people who have done nothing. People need to pay attention to who they are voting for! It’s time for us to start asking them the hard questions everyone seems so fearful to ask. Vetting them before they get elected, holding them to their promises. If we don’t this country is doomed to fail!
Pass no-nonsense legislation to keep the government from “borrowing” from it?
Hmm, we pay taxes on our monies going into SS from our paychecks and then we PAY tax on the social security check we receive. DOUBLE tax. Why? Sounds illegal !
JFK and LBJ started raiding SS with the promise that it would be paid back, in full! They used the money for their pie in the sky social programs which only cause fewer people to seek employment because they are being sustained by the nations workers!
Both parties are paid by taxpayers, make on average more than taxpayers, get 100% of their pay for retirement from taxpayers, but continue to rip off SS from taxpayers then ask taxpayers for extra money to fund their “efforts” to represent us taxpayers. We are chumps.
Don’t agree with any of it. The SS fund is funded into perpetuity. If the government employees stopped giving themselves raises and quit raiding the SS fund, there would be plenty to go all the way around.
Should a retiree risk OASDI solvency, delaying past age 62 and receiving a fraction of designated benefits?
Help Eliminate the social security windfall act for police and others. Why do we get screwed over and the gov gives illegal aliens free social security
If there had been an option to have better information provided concerning the reduction of benefits from continuing to work, id retired at 62, AND how that ceases at Full Retirement Age. You can draw full benefits at FRA and continue working with no reduction of the current benefit.
If you are thinking of continuing to work and begin collecting benefits at 70, your benefit is higher, but not enough to justify leaving the money in the program.
People MUST understand that any funds undistributed at death are not part of your estate. In that case, the beneficiary is the US Treasury.
Get all of your money out as quickly a possible. If you are working and don’t need the cash, invest it so it does become part of your estate, in the event you die before 70. The higher benefit in that case is only to the Treasury, not your children or other beneficiaries.
It is sad to see so many readers who think SS is ‘fixable”, or even worth saving! When are we going to wake up to the reality that Socialism in any form, no matter how well intentioned, sucks! It is guaranteed to fail because it denies human nature. It is antithetical to a republican, law based form of government, which our Constitution calls for, Art 4, Sec 4.
It will always degenerate into more totalitarian forms of government; communism, Marxism. It only benefits the power holders. The great 19th century French libertarian economist Frederic Bastiat said it best; “The State is that is that great fiction by which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else.” I heartily recommend his great work “The Law”, published just before his untimely death in 1849. It is less than 100 pages and available on line for free as it is in the public domain. In very plain language it blows the whole silly utopian socialist nonsense out of the water! If it were the only textbook used in a H.S. level economics course, it would cure everyone of the “Free Lunch” syndrome……..of course present day “edjookayshun” has reduced the average vocabulary to only 200 or 300 words, so a vocabulary building course would be in order! Set yourself free. Get off the government plantation. Begin with your mind.
The only folks benefitting by waiting until you reach 70 to draw SS, are the government. If you wait until age 70 to draw your SS, you DO RECEIVE larger payments. However, by not starting to receive benefits earlier, you leave enormous amounts “on the table” and untouched. Imagine drawing $1500 monthly at age 62. That equates to $18,000 annually. Waiting until you’re 70, means you leave $18,000 annually, or a total of $144,000 (18,000 per year times 8 years) in the government coffers. You’ll need to live into your late 80s to recoup the money you didn’t draw starting at 62. You’re betting against the reaper, and the government wants you to wait, betting you’ll die younger than that.
All the above would be helpful. For instance, I had to retire at 62. It was explained that my benefits were reduced. But not that it was permanently reduced.
In addition, I have
heard of people, even teenagers, who got “temporary” SSI, and did not get off it.
Social Security Administration employees are required to tell people that they’ll earn more if they delay their retirement to age 70. On its face, that is accurate, but many do not make it to that age, look at the actuarial tables, or you may have immediate needs for income. Retiring at 62 requires a healthy income stream from investments to offset the 50% hit you will take, but “Full Retirement” at what ever age you’re allowed to retire, 65 in my case, will net me more money for 22 years before I will ever see the impact of retiring at 75% instead of 100%.
When an acquaintance who worked for SSA retired early, I asked “what’s up with that?, you’ve always told us to wait”. He said he had to tell us that, but now that he’s retired, he can tell us to do the math. I did, and put all the number in an Excel spreadsheet and charted the retirement incomes over time base on age of retirement. He is correct. I will be 87 years old before retiring at 65 will result in a reduction in income versus retiring at 70.
My wife is collecting SSI @ 65 YO I am 67 and would like to collect as well. I am the higher earner and will collect more. Does her income or mine affect the amount we will receive? Since I am over the FRA and wish to continue working does that impact her SSI
1. Stop lying
2. Stop politician’s from stealing the money paid into SS
The way I see it, IF the amount of money they took from my paychecks had been invested each year, there would be enough to pay for my benefit now. There would even be enough to pay for veterans who sacrificed their life/health to serve our country. However, when the government gets money it rarely turns out good. They took from SS funds when other funds were in need. That should have never been allowed to happen. It is not called a “tax.” It wasn’t their money. It is my money (in theory). In essence, they took from me with the promise that I’ll get something in return… (but not so much.) That is what is frustrating.
SSA should have NEVER been given to foreigners who NEVER PUT INTO IT!! Politicians should have NOT used Social Security money for other things. SSA money should have NEVER been given to those that NEVER put into it from the very beginning!!! Then, SSI just became RIDICULOUS!!! …Handed out like free water!! Now, by the time we get started getting it, it will be GONE!!! ????????????
Explain the pyramid nature of the funding of Social Security, than makes it financially insolvent.
Outline the Constitutional basis for a federal entitlement program (which I do not believe exists).
Fight to get funds back that were used earlier for other programs! We have paid into Social Security for our retirement not for it to be funding some other cause!
Social security is nothing less than a Ponzi scheme. If I’m not mistaken, when the program was first implemented, there were 28 people paying into the system for every recipient. Today, I believe that number is now less than 2. Just as with the Ponzi scheme, that number will soon be down to a negative factor of those paying in, and just like the Ponzi scheme, the system will go bust and will be nothing more than an albatross around peoples’ necks.
Social Security replaced welfare. When I went to my local office to arrange for benefits years ago, the room was full of people with children. If it went solely to retired people who paid into it, and was invested wisely, we wouldn’t have a problem. Social Security should not go to the disabled or the minor children of widows. Also, it started as a 1% tax but currently is 15% (half paid by an employer.) High earners must pay into it but will probably never see benefits in the future. Social Security should be optional and privately run by a reputable investment company or banks. Like all other Government programs there is billions lost to fraud.
Considering that even FDR knew this would have to be renegotiated years later around the 60’s and it never was. I don’t see how this can continue at it current rate especially with the inflation that is coming in the next few years.
I would not expect any government entity to be forthcoming and honest with we the people.
As I understand it, President Lyndon Johnson allowed Congress to BORROW money from the Social Security Fund to put in the general fund. I also understand not only has Congress not paid most of or any of the money back but has allowed people not entitled to that money to get it. Then the Social Security Administration doesn’t keep very good records of deceased people thus sending deceased people monthly Social Security checks, therefore unwilling or unable or a combination thereof to collect the monies that should not have been sent in the first place. Back to the BORROWING and NON REPAYMENT, isn’t that called or could be referred to as EMBEZZLEMENT?
TO A BROADER POINT, WHY SHOULD CONGRESS GIVE A DAMN ABOUT US ANYWAY, THEY ARE AND ARE GOING TO BE TAKEN CARE OF JUST BY THE NATURE OF THEIR JOB.
The truth is that ever since the government declared the savings plan started by President Rosevelt, that was to be voluntary and held by the government, like a bank, as a savings program for retirement.
Over the years the government saw the voluntary savings as a mandatory program, but not a tax. However, that fund became the bucket for supporting people who may not have contributed anything, as a social crutch and when LBJ was in office they moved the funds into the general accounts and it became a tax and the money used as inacted by congress.
The downfall of the social security program happened during the Obama years, when Social Security became an entitlement program. You didn’t have a social security savings program, it became an entitlement program that anyone could apply for and receive, but by then it was drained.
The next purge is the Cares Act where the United States was to right the losses to American workers and helping to rebuild business effected by Covid and the mandatory business closures forced on American corporations, companies and small businesses. Instead the Biden administration backed up failed retirement and their investment firms by providing the Unions, who made the bad investments, money to save union retirement programs, not the social security program. A savings program, now a tax, payed by American workers, that is being doled out to failed union retirement programs, who supported the DNC and their only choice, controllable teleprompter Biden. They did not think about the tax paying American people who paid into a retirement savings plan or indicate any plan to use these funds to revamp the losses in the social security program.
Biden has read many times that he is not afraid of people blaming his administration for the near or maybe already in, ression, or that inflation sits at arecord high, never reached in American history, along with a stock marked that may lose many more billions of dollars world wide, not just in America, because he is helping people. So, ask yourselves who are these people he is helping, have you been helped. The people he is helping, are the unions, not the over all American public. Its the union investors who needed a bailout and that’s the people he is concerned about, not the tax payers who worked for 40 to 50 years and depending on social security to live out their retirement years. These Americans paid for this plan and the Democrates who originally started it as a savings plan, have made in a tax and now paying for votes from unions!
Id like to see people actually get back what they have paid in plus interest.
And those that die before using up their benefits should be able to assign them to a beneficiary. Also the minimum should be a livable amount.
Quit drawing money out of our investments to fund all the little political pet projects.
I have a friend that loves math and figured that if he had saved what he put into social security from the time he was 16 til he was 65, earning only minimumwages all those years and figuring the interest rates as they changed over the years. He would have had over 2 million dollars in his account. The power of compounding! But how many die and never claim a penny? Its our money, not the governments! we should have a say in how it is used!
How about adding food, energy and medical to the COLA.
How about stopping the double tax we pay on social security
My hubby recently stood in line for 3 hours to get a SS benefits verification letter for a loan. (he locked himself out of online acct! Ugh!) He said 75% were foreigners between ages of 20-40. Why are they giving our hard earned money to those coming here illegally? Makes my BP go up.
All the above and many more. But then, this is a rather misguided poll question. IMHO.
actually none of the above. what we need is a private option. We should have the option of making deposits to a private bank or investment clmoany. And how is it this is a mandatory ptogram? how is it constitional?
Added: you have to raise the age where you can collect (based on current mortality, not when the program started), or increase payments in…politically unacceptable to those who want to keep their phony baloney jobs. I favor paying this on all earned income, without regard to the age you earn it or the amount you earn.
Politicians broke the system when they robbed the trust fund “to eliminate the deficit” under Reagan. Also, they continued to rob it over the years by expanding who was eligible to collect, for example, SSI. If you’re an “alcoholic”, or you have a “bad back” and can’t work or a myriad of other so called disabilities, you can qualify. That puts a drain on the program giving money to folks who likely never paid in or made very little payment over their working lives. How much better would everyone be had we had to make savings into a 401k? What about the poor guy who didn’t have the discipline to save? Give them welfare.