Since they were never allowed to vote for social security, should young people that have paid less than 20 quarters be allowed to opt out?

[KelleyNice]

Signing of the Social Security Act 1935

[MikeInHawaii]

Anyone should be allowed to opt out. After paying in for 42 years, I did a discounted present value of a future cash flow analysis on my Socialist Insecurity account. Assuming I work until I’m 70 and live to be 83 (based on family history) the present value of the money I still need to pay in exceeds the present value of my benefits by about $25,000!

That’s right, with government handling my retirement account, 42 years of paying in 14% of my income, including employer match, has resulted in a debt!

At your age, I’d say join the Church of Scientology and get a religious exemption. Scientology is a scam and a fraud, but if you can give a couple thousand to that fraud and have a minister sign a form, it will end your forced retirement in a bigger fraud!

[BarryLiverstone]

Nope. We can’t be allowed to opt out because the system relies on all us younger people to pay into it. However I don’t believe it benefits us to pay in at 100%. Do you think when we retire we will be collecting at 100%?

[OlderAndWiser]

The Social Securty Act was voted on by Congress, not the general citizenry, and I am sure that there are no members of that Congress who are still alive. So NO ONE who is paying into Social Security voted for that Act.

Additionally, the progran was started on an actuarilly unsound design. Current contributions from workers are used to pay current retirement benefits to older people. If many young people opt out, there would be insufficient funds to pay current retirees. How would you address that problem?

[BarryLiverstone]

Would be addressed by designating age ranges and defining percentages of payments and collections. For example would suggest everyone 50+ still pays in 100% and will collect 100%. But 30-50 only pays in 75% and collects 50%. 30 and under pays 50% and can at the most collect 25% or none.

I know there is no perfect solution but something has to change because social security and Medicare is to huge a percentage of federal funds rn and will only increase over time. We can’t just keep passing the buck.

[KelleyNice]

Let their children or charities support them just like prior to 1935.

[BarryLiverstone]

Kelly my suggestion is we pay 50% but not expect to collect anything when we retire. In essence we are paying into the system so our parents generation can collect. That still leaves us 50% that we can set aside privately for our own retirement. Otherwise we could still pay 100% for our careers only for the system to run out of money by the time we are due to collect

[KelleyNice]

@BarryLiverstone Social Security is already broke. Congress borrowed the $2.6 trillion surplus and gave worthless IOUs that the Social Security Trust fund cannot cash. Currently retirees are paid partly from social taxes and partly from the general fund.

[BarryLiverstone]

Thank you for adding support to my suggestion that something has to change.

[KelleyNice]

@BarryLiverstone No doubt about it. There will be changes. The national debt is nothing compared to the unfunded liabilities. According to an estimate I read, the unfunded liabilities is $200 trillion which includes social security, medicare, civil service retirement, etc., That is 600 thousand dollars for every man woman and child. Including children, more than 2/3rds the people don't have $10,000. How can they pay 600 thousand?

[Oigit]

Set it up that you can opt out of contributing to it. But you also opt out of receiving it as well. After all people shouldn't be able to benefit from it if they are unwilling to pitch in their share.

[KelleyNice]

Absolutely, if someone opts out, they should receive nothing.

[josephinelcajon]

I understand your thought. And wish it was that easy! BUT the problem is people paid money into this system, but our government has stolen from it. So if people stared to opt out it would fully collapse leaving many who depend on it hopeless. The next problem not all but some will not properly prepare for their retirement and become a burden to society from this failure. It needs change and it needs to be repaid the money that was taken from it. It was a good idea especially for its time.

[andreasderjuengere]

The bigwigs NEVER ask the small people.

My modus and practice: when I haven't been asked about my opinion - I take advantage from ''the System'' when it's possible - and I by-pass it where ever I can.

Sounds ''immoral'' - yes. But ''the System'' is immoral as well.

Quid pro quo.

[Anonymous]

Sure, but it wouldn't mean what you think it means.

You want it to mean that the old people who have already paid should get short changed, due to the way that fiat currency and inflation works.

[KelleyNice]

How does not robbing us short changed them?

[Opinion Owner]

If you dont already get it there won't be any explaining it to you.

I dont see you complaining about getting to use all the shit previous generations gifted to you.

It is fine if its working in your favour but you get this ridiculous idea in your head that you are somehow having to pay for someone else that you are being ripped off.

Those people who getting paid right now, they already paid into the system, if you want to opt out, fine, but that will mean you dont get your share later, the country still owes those people so even if you stop paying social security the nation will still be picking up the tab and as you want to derail the system you will just get taxed some other way and rightly so.

I dont see you complaining about banks and big businesses being bailed out or ridiculous military spending etc, no you want to take food that your grand father already paid for out of his mouth.

Its fairly alarming that you can't identify how disgusting that is.

[KelleyNice]

@Guffrus supporting children is what parents do. My parents are not complaining about supporting me; so why should you? Social security doesn't gift me anything. It robs money from my father and in time it will rob money from me. I have no desire to protect fools from their folly. It, because they were greedy that were foolish enough to believe false promises, that shouldn't be my problem.

[Opinion Owner]

Maybe the American system really is that awful but Im pretty sure you are just clueless.

What part of the people currently claiming having paid into the system their whole lives dont you understand?

[KelleyNice]

Only fools would believe and vote for politicians that make impossible promises. Let the fools depend on their children, charities, or else they have the right to starve liked tens of millions in North Korea and Africa.

[Opinion Owner]

Even taking that disgusting position you still have no business talking about theft.

You dont even know what words mean.

[KelleyNice]

If the old people are short changed, it is of their own making. Why should I be expected to pay for their mistakes. In the unlikely event, it ever becomes necessary, I'll take care of my parents and people taking care of their own (not other parents) is how it has been for thousands of years. That is why China has an overpopulation problem. Chinese needed more children to support them in the old age.

[Opinion Owner]

Not even close.

China already had a population problem which have tried to address by having birth limits, for the last 40 years they have had a 1 child policy.

They are now having to try to encourage births because of the disproportionate ratio of workers and old people that has been created by the one child policy.

[Sixgunsound]

We should all be refunded our contributions to invest how we see fit and the department should close

[KelleyNice]

It is a tax and congress has already spend it. You don't get your taxes back. Furthermore, here is no legal right to Social Security.

Many people believe that Social Security is an “earned right.” That is, they think that because they have paid Social Security taxes, they are entitled to receive Social Security benefits. The government encourages that belief by referring to Social Security taxes as “contributions,” as in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act. However, in the 1960 case of Fleming v. Nestor, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that workers have no legally binding contractual rights to their Social Security benefits, and that those benefits can be cut or even eliminated at any time.

[Sixgunsound]

Just another rent seeking exploitation scheme courtesy of people who think they are better than us

[DWornock]

That would be wonderful and the final nail to that illegal ponzi scheme.

[KelleyNice]

Social Security is not an illegal ponzi scheme. It is not a scheme at all other than how people are led to believe it is an earned right to receive payments. However, their no legal right to Social Security. Therefore, it only a tax. In the 1960 case of Fleming v. Nestor, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that workers have no legally binding contractual rights to their Social Security benefits, and that those benefits can be cut or even eliminated at any time.

[DWornock]

Even if not legally, in effect, Social Security is Ponzi scheme because congress will not eliminate Social Security. Not until and unless there is an economic collapse.

[abc3643]

No.

Welcome to the real world.

It sucks.

You don't like it; take your parents to court suing them that their having you was a tort.

[KelleyNice]

It is the lies and hypocrisy of the real world that I wish to expose and hopefully help change. If, as you claim, society is not a ponzi scheme, social security recipients don't need us paying into it. In that case, it is fully funded by those that paid and are paying into it.

[abc3643]

It's not a Ponzi scheme because:
1) the mathematics are different
and
2) it's completely transparent

Young lady, ...

EVERY FUCKING DEBT by any nation anywhere throughout time and space - social security, wars, education, defense, farm subsidies, investment in businesses and contracts to them - is paid off by future generations.

That's how it works until the Sun explodes.

[KelleyNice]

@abc3643 Countries have three ways to pay of debts:

1. Pay back the debt. And, that is impossible.
2. Print money and then pay back the debt with less valuable money.
3. Refuse to pay the debt and default.

It will either be #2 or #3 or some combination. Whether a country or a family, the young don't always pay the debt. In that case the creditors may not collect. In this case, the creditors are the old that created the debt. They don't have the money so if the young refuse to pay, they don't collect. Therefore, the debt is paid by default. In time, all debts are paid, either by the lender (default) or the borrower, or partly by both.

[abc3643]

This:
"1. Pay back the debt. And, that is impossible."

That's false; plenty of times, national governments have a profit.

Take a look at this graph from FRED:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD
https://ibb.co/drWd68R

If you look closely, during the Clinton Administration, the Federal Government trended upward from deficit to surplus; the Federal Government MADE more money than it spent. This is why Bush 43 gave tax cuts in 2001. "That money belongs to the people; we have to give it back." He COULD have instead paid down the debt but paying down debt doesn't score as many political points as people getting tax rebate checks.
(more)

[abc3643]

The real problem is that sometimes the government needs to go into debt (often by tax cuts or rebates) to spur economic activity after some type of disaster. For instance, The Great Recession, COVID-19, after 9/11...

Take a look at that FRED graph again.
Notice how it hovers around 0 for a long time.
Then, once the GOP was in charge from 1981 to 1992, the government did a lot of "deficit spending". Fiscal conservatives were grumpy about that, but what had happened was a confluence of 3 things:
1. Paul Voelker killed inflation that sapped us in the 1970s.
2. But this caused a recession.
3. And Reagan did two things: give tax cuts to stimulate the economy a bit and spend like a drunken sailor on defense. That's why the 1980s were a good time. It was "party! party! party!" because of all that debt.

Then, when Democrat Clinton came into office, things trended upward back to surplus. Part of that was due to the dawn and maturation of the Internet economy.

Things dipped again because of 9/11 wars, then The Great Recession, and then COVID.

Things are trending upward again because of recovery from COVID and not spending on 9/11 wars anymore.

My point in all of this is that governments are capable of achieving surpluses and paying off debt - when they want to.

Besides, no country ever wants to pay back all its debt because debt exists to give people a safe investment vehicle. It also goes a significant way to maintaining world security.

Again, you need to learn some macroeconomics and, in this case, fiscal policy.

[abc3643]

Just two things I forgot...
During the Clinton years, part of the upward trend was "the peace dividend" - with the Cold War ending, defense spending didn't need to go as full bore as it had. Also, the trade relationship with China went back to normal and Clinton normalized relations with Vietnam which is why Vietnam's economy has grown and we get products from Vietnam now.

[abc3643]

Kelley, you are being spoon-fed a lot of fear. By whom, I do not know.

Read the following carefully, because is a valuable lesson about human nature and the real world.

=========

While some of those fears are genuine, others often have a stake in stoking fear because it's a form of propaganda...

Fear is a great motivator to get people to think and do what you want them to. So, when you put a specific fear into someone's mind and then you offer them a "solution" to that fear (whether or not the "solution" actually is one or even that the "problem" that causes the fear really exists), they will have a tendency to listen to you and agree with you because NOTHING motivates a person more than fear.

BUT...

Fear is rooted in ignorance and inexperience and undisciplined thinking.

When you learn how to learn and acquire and process information in an objective and logical way, you can erode fear and protect yourself from charlatans and those who wish to manipulate you.

It is imperative that you learn this.

[exitseven]

The problem with this is that these snowflakes will not invest the money on their own but just spend it on big screen TVs and expensive cell phone plans. By the time they are 66 they will expect the government to bail them out.

[USLegionary]

Absolutely but young people are the biggest recipients

[KelleyNice]

False, I don't collect a cent from social security but my great grandparents do.

[USLegionary]

Your young so not so far. But if you are disabled you might. To be honest you won't be retiring until 70

[IsoUser]

The answer is a big NO. Just because your dad gives you 20 Quarters a week apparently you're not doing chores hard enough for pay increases Lol

[KelleyNice]

It is a bit more than that but I don't pay social security tax.

[IsoUser]

I can assure you that your dad does every paycheck Lol

[joeldalton]

nope. You're caught in the "legal" ponzi scheme.

[MikeInHawaii]

Yep! Bernie Madoff went to prison for setting up a similar program!

[MrSmithee]

yes.