A real solution from a politician

[Bill from NYC]

Sorry man, but it there is a cap on the benefit there needs to be a cap on the contribution.

 

I fully agree.

[finknottle]

Agreed. I don't ever hear anybody discussing this.

 

Other than this, of the handfull of issues I might be considered to be "liberal" about is Social Security. I have an issue with people not paying after they make 100K, or whatever the limit is. Sorry, but a person making 80 is subject to paying SS tax on all of his income, while a person making a million only pays on 10% or so. This is NOT to say that I think the higher earners shouldn't receive a bigger benefit, because they would deserve it.

 

But then again, I can understand how people would not want to do this considering how money is given away as you stated.

 

This is the fault line between whether the program is a savings program or an entitlement.

 

If one views it as a saving program whose objective is to have people pay for their own retirement, then stopping contributions at an arbitrary point is reasonable and fair - what a person gets back is supposed to be the money they put in, so what's the difference?

 

But if one views it as a redistribution program, with benefits not tied to contributions, then of course the government would want people to contribute based on their entire income.

 

Historically SocSec has been and continues to be sold as the former (complete with individualized statements mailed out every year detailing your contributions, and promises of what it will earn you in retirement), but treated in practice like the latter (a tax on income going into a general fund, out of which benefits are spread across the public). The result is that we have politicians talking about raising the limits to raise revenue, as if this were an income tax that rich people are unfairly avoiding.

[finknottle]

Bottom line: like all Ponzi schemes, SS will eventually crash in a spectacular disaster.

 

Very much a Ponzi scheme. And like pyramid schemes on the verge of collapse, we see desparate attempts to keep an ever-increasing flow of money going into the system. We have to raise the cap on what people can pay in to the system... We have to expand our population, doubling it again...

[finknottle]

Here's a footnote on SocSec:

 

When you pay in, your employer matches you. Suppose you work for two companies - increasingly common these days. Maybe one is your own business. Suppose you fall below the cap in both at 60k, but together you are above it. The extra you paid in you get back on your income taxes. However, the excess matching money paid by the employers is kept by SocSec, not credited to you nor returned to the company that paid it. If it was your company, it can get pretty annoying.

[Chef Jim]

Here's a footnote on SocSec:

 

When you pay in, your employer matches you. Suppose you work for two companies - increasingly common these days. Maybe one is your own business. Suppose you fall below the cap in both at 60k, but together you are above it. The extra you paid in you get back on your income taxes. However, the excess matching money paid by the employers is kept by SocSec, not credited to you nor returned to the company that paid it. If it was your company, it can get pretty annoying.

 

Welcome to my world. And I do my own matching on 50% of my income.

[MrNix]

Yes, someone can collect without paying into the system. I know people who immigrated to the US in their 60s, never worked a day in this country and receive a SS check every month. There are billions lost to loopholes and outright fraud in the system.

 

But rather than address that, all we'll hear is how some people should continue to pay more.

I tried to find verification of your original statement through a search, but I can't.

Sorry, but I don't accept your circumstantial evidence. As far as I can tell, you can only collect social security retirement income if you paid into it, and the amount you get is dependent on the amount you've worked and paid into it. Do you have anything to support these statements now?

[John Adams]

I tried to find verification of your original statement through a search, but I can't.

Sorry, but I don't accept your circumstantial evidence. As far as I can tell, you can only collect social security retirement income if you paid into it, and the amount you get is dependent on the amount you've worked and paid into it. Do you have anything to support these statements now?

 

http://www.mysocialsecuritylawyers.com/wha...ked-before.html

 

Voila.

[Magox]

http://www.mysocialsecuritylawyers.com/wha...ked-before.html

 

Voila.

I know people who immigrated to the US in their 60s, never worked a day in this country and receive a SS check every month

According to that link, this wouldn't qualify.

[finknottle]

According to that link, this wouldn't qualify.

 

He might have been referring to SSI, which technically is a different program.

 

As far as I know, you don't get SocSec if you have never worked and you are not a spouse or dependent of someone who has. But I venture that there are very very few people who have never worked at all.

 

For the record, my beef with SocSec is not that I think people are taking home fat retirement checks without working much. I don't think they are. It is simply the idea that a program - a mandatory program - in which we must invest our money as individuals to be withdrawn at retirement as individuals is discriminatory in the rate of return given. One part of society is granted a higher rate of interest, while another gets zero.

[John Adams]

According to that link, this wouldn't qualify.

 

I wasn't really involved in this discussion much but I provided the link to the lawyers because it discussed SSI, which appears to answer the question of how people can get Social Security (in some form) and not have worked.

 

I have worked with a lot of families in Philadelphia on family law and trust me, they have NEVER worked and all have a way to game the SSI system so that they get their checks. In addition to SSI, they get their food stamps (which is actually just a credit card you can use to buy food these days). That gives about $700-$1000 worth of food a month depending on dependents.

[Magox]

I wasn't really involved in this discussion much but I provided the link to the lawyers because it discussed SSI, which appears to answer the question of how people can get Social Security (in some form) and not have worked.

 

I have worked with a lot of families in Philadelphia on family law and trust me, they have NEVER worked and all have a way to game the SSI system so that they get their checks. In addition to SSI, they get their food stamps (which is actually just a credit card you can use to buy food these days). That gives about $700-$1000 worth of food a month depending on dependents.

I don't doubt that.

[John Adams]

I don't doubt that.

 

I've mentioned many times that my interaction with the family law system here in Philly is disheartening because I've met so many people for whom it is ingrained in their culture to never work. And I do mean never. It's just not part of anything they would even consider doing.

 

I'm not going to lament that they live high and mighty either, with pictures of flat-screens and nice cars somehow. For the most part, these people live like nomads, moving between public-assisted housing until evicted, electricity constantly being shut off, etc. And these are usually (in my world) mothers with children. It's a real nightmare that saying the word "work" to them, you might as well be offering them a job as a neurosurgeon because they will NEVER work.

[Magox]

I've mentioned many times that my interaction with the family law system here in Philly is disheartening because I've met so many people for whom it is ingrained in their culture to never work. And I do mean never. It's just not part of anything they would even consider doing.

 

I'm not going to lament that they live high and mighty either, with pictures of flat-screens and nice cars somehow. For the most part, these people live like nomads, moving between public-assisted housing until evicted, electricity constantly being shut off, etc. And these are usually (in my world) mothers with children. It's a real nightmare that saying the word "work" to them, you might as well be offering them a job as a neurosurgeon because they will NEVER work.

I would have to attribute that to a culture of entitlement. I'm trying to think about this through a psychological point of view, if one is surrounded by family, friends and neighbors that are use to receiving assistance from X source, then a sense of entitlement comes about. One believes that they are entitled to this constant assistance, which in turn would make one strive for less, knowing that assistance will always be there.

 

What doesn't help is that the environment that many of these people that are receving assistance enables and support each other for this sort of living, although as you mentioned, it's not as if that they are living in the lap of luxary, but none the less, they become accustom to and adapt to this lower standard of living, without having to work as much. Once people adapt, relatively speaking there isn't that much of a difference between a higher living standard and one from a lower income neighborhood.

 

I mean, at the end of the day, what makes one happy is friends, family, get togethers, laughs, smiles etc.. These are things that are enjoyed from all walks of life.

 

Anyway, I'm a big advocate of short term pain, long term gain. I believe that we have to stop enabling our children, community and citizens through harmful assistance. This sort of assistance is harmful for these communities in the long run. I mean, look, the proof is in the pudding, they have been receiving government assistance for a long time now and look at them. Does it look as if these neighborhoods have progressed over the years?

 

It's time for some tough love, and allow many of these people to be accountable for their families, community, nation and most importantly themselves.