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They most definitely cannot make cuts at the lower end since many of these people are barely surviving on their Social Security and any cuts mean these people are going to be homeless or starve.
The easiest for them is to look further up the chain. The problem here is that what there is a huge disparity with what I consider wealthy and what the government considers wealthy. The government will probably assume anyone who has assets over $1M is "wealthy". I totally disagree, to me "wealthy" starts at minimum $15M in assets.
To me to be wealthy your assets need to generate an income level that can be classified at least in the top 95th percentile. That income currently sits at $300,000/yr. For a conservative portfolio with a dividend yield of 2%, working backwards, that amounts to $15M in assets.
So sure, if I had $15M in assets in the bank I may not care about my Social Security. But for the rest of us it is pretty damn important and it is crucial that we receive what we were promised.
My opinion is that $300K/year is too low. Even at $300K income, SS can be very important - SS can be up to $90K or 30% of that income for a high SS benefit couple. That is not chump change or afterthought at that level.
We have nowhere close to $15M but sometimes go above $300K taxable income with Roth conversions. We will get about $88K from SS if we wait till 70, $62K if started today - holding off on SS to do the Roth moves.
With marginal tax rates as much as 44.3% (35% federal and 9.3% CA state) at $300K, $100K of that money can be just income taxes. Now instead of $300K, you can be more like $200K. With average houses / townhouses / condos in some places at $1.5M, taking $100K in income, you are now at about $100K for everything else - clearly not rich in the traditional sense by any means. I know to some, $300K sounds like a fortune but in a high COL areas, that money can be not much.
go learn what the definition of a ponzi scheme is ..social security is like all insurance , it works by using future money to pay off future claims .
a ponzi scheme promises rewards based on goods or services that doesn’t exist .
social security promises none of that .it is simply insurance which does exactly as claimed
I agree it's not a ponzi scheme, as there are very real assets involved and it's not using future investor funds to fraudulently give the appearance of investment returns to current investors.
Instead, I would say it's "forced" insurance which is used as another wealth transfer by the government. Clearly, those who are disciplined with their money would 100% rather be able to invest those funds themselves. Whereas those who are broke and have mountains of debt with no savings would rather get a monthly paycheck from SS.
No I keep reading about how it is always the “rich not paying their fair share” in liberal media so decided to give my 0.02 on an economics forum for wealthy people. I found the link from the SSA which I showed to some very liberal individual at work and their job dropped. The amount “rich” people pay is more and more by the year.
Ultimately, wouldn’t it be cheaper just to require everyone to put 12.5% of their income by law into a fund of whatever they want? I’d even be willing to eat the losses and just take a nominal cash disbursement on what I’ve paid into it over the last 16 years. I really think my investments would significantly outperform whatever “gains” I’d get in this Ponzi sham over the next 30 years.
Yes, you would absolutely be better off. But then it wouldn't be a wealth transfer for high income earners to subsidize poor people.
Well...all I know is that I'm looking forward to my monthly Social Security check.
I should get, proportionally, what the very first recipient Ida May Fuller received:
Her lifetime contributions to Social Security: $24.75
Her first monthly Social Security check: $22.54, and she collected a total of about 985 x her contributions.
So - she was getting monthly checks equal to 91% of what she contributed over her working career before retiring.
Looking at my last Social Security statement, it looks like I've contributed just over $170K to Social Security.
So, using the Ida May Fuller algorithm, when I start collecting Social Security I should be receiving a monthly check of around $154K, or about $1.85M annually. If I live as long as Ida May Fuller, I should receive a total of around $167M.
Right now, there are less than 2 taxpayers per recipient.
When that drops to less than 1 taxpayer per recipient, watch out.
Either taxpayers will revolt, or recipients will riot, depending on who gets the bad news.
You can bet like night follows day ss will be fully funded in the 11th hour
Yawn
Its not yet a Ponzi Scheme because Social Security is not insolvent. If that was to occur and never say never (one day a particular political party might decide not to go along with raising the debt ceiling for example) then it would be. In a Ponzi Scheme the early people involved in it get paid back. At some point they don't. SS could end up being a very long running Ponzi Scheme. But calling it one today is not correct.
Right now, there are less than 2 taxpayers per recipient.
When that drops to less than 1 taxpayer per recipient, watch out.
Either taxpayers will revolt, or recipients will riot, depending on who gets the bad news.
According to you participation is voluntary so wouldn’t taxpayers just stop voluntarily contributing? No need to revolt, you’ll defend them right? And pay whatever they might wind up owing if the unthinkable happens and you’re wrong.
I have paid the max SS over the last 20 years+ and expect to get what was promised. Higher income folks already put much more into the system than they are getting back, now they want to add insult to injury avd cut even that.
The large print giveth... and the small print taketh away.
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