Social security

Rich or poor...you had earning's you will never be excluded...you under no obligation to accept it...Just like Trump accepted no pay for being president..oh wait yes he did accept pay

“What I do see sometimes is a sneering sort of attitude at those who collect their ssi benefits while being wealthy.”

I would politely tell them to fuck off.

You’ve paid into the system just as they have.

Assuming you’re not “cooking” the books. You most likely have a tax liability on that SSI money. As PHX has pointed out. Remind them of that.

Based on the answer to my question. I am assuming your moving goalposts on age is also a forecast of yours for years from now?

Social Security will always be a universal program.

If rich people are excluded, those rich people will get enough political capital to destroy the system.

There is no serious push in government from anyone that I am aware of to restrict collection of social security benefits based upon wealth or income, although some organizations have proposed it. What I do see sometimes is a sneering sort of attitude at those who collect their ssi benefits while being wealthy. What is the purpose of this? Is a rich person not entitled to a insurance coverage if their house burns down or their car is stolen?

Some may think I'm paranoid. I believe that there is a reasonable chance that in the next 20 years a government will be elected that makes a case to the electorate that I don't deserve it. If I'm wrong, ok good. If I'm right, at least I prepared for it.

Erotic---->Now start looking at expenses. How much can that person actually save?

It depends on where you prioritize "the save" line item. We have always prioritized the line item called "pay me first". No matter if it was 401K (with matching funds) or just general rainy-day savings it went ahead of everything else. We always, yes always considered our available income for food, housing, entertainment, vacations, cars etc. to be amount AFTER the pay me first line item(s).

There is a large swath of the public that pay's themselves last, meaning not at all. Often times through lack of education and financial discipline people prioritize their current or desired lifestyle over their future retirement goals (assuming they even have mapped out goals).

@PHX, you’re not comparing apples and apples.

I understand what you’re saying. If you’re above a certain income threshold. You are subject to a tax on that.

VAB said, “not entitled to any of it”.

I’m not arguing if he is right or wrong. I have just never heard this before. And it is not what I understand. And I may be wrong? I’m asking for education in this.

VAB is indeed correct on the potential, in the eyes of the Government, of making too much money and being obligated for taxes on your benefits. Note below what is included in other income.

From IRS.Gov

To find out if their benefits are taxable, taxpayers should:
Take one half of the Social Security money they collected during the year and add it to their other income.
--->Other income includes pensions, wages, interest, dividends and capital gains<---

If they are single and that total comes to more than $25,000, then part of their Social Security benefits may be taxable.
If they are married filing jointly, they should take half of their Social Security, plus half of their spouse's Social Security, and add that to all their combined income. If that total is more than $32,000, then part of their Social Security may be taxable.

@VAB, “Meanwhile, beat a drum that I am not entitled to any of it because I made too much money.”

This is the second time you’ve broached this topic. Can you explain it? Are you saying this is something that may be proposed down the line?

I always thought you could earn as much as you want after you’ve reached full retirement age? I know there are penalties up until full retirement age. But I’ve never heard that people are totally excluded because of income level. And I thought, pensions, annuities, investment income, interest, veterans benefits, etc. are not considered income against the benefit?

@5

There is a constituent vote. It happens every 2 years.

Let's look at some very simple reality.

The median income is 85k. That means that 1/2 earns less than that. That immediately took them out of homeownership in a vast swath of the state. Now start looking at expenses. How much can that person actually save?

It's very easy to talk the talk because some of us have been able to back it up. But as one of my teachers once told me, if everyone was smart, you'd just be average. We have a vast swath of citizens in America who are living paycheck to paycheck. If your solution is tough shit to them. Sorry, that battle has been fought and your position lost. Society voted and they actually have care and concern for the elderly.

So in one of your scenarios, you don't care if they didn't save and had the ability to. That is akin to the culture war that was being fought in Utah about trans athletes. All the crazy feared to death people were going off about it. That VERY red state said, "This is stupid. There are SIX trans kids TOTAL." So to ruin SS for those that are the vast majority over the small few that didn't, oh well. I am ok with that. I don't expect perfection. My agenda is to help the elderly.

"That is not a way to live in retirement"

Nah. A better way is to take 13% of what I make, keep moving the goalposts until i can begin to collect a fraction of it, and then seize it if I die before I reach the ever-shifting age goalposts. Meanwhile, beat a drum that I am not entitled to any of it because I made too much money.

@EA,

What makes that any different than the Government moving the goal posts without a constituent vote? Hmm. Of course there are going to be those that don’t invest and live for the moment. Not my Circus, Not my monkeys. And before you ask.. I don’t care what happens to people whom have the ability to save for their future and don’t or won’t. It costs all of us way more than it should to have to make sure stupid/Weak people have any net to fall into. I’m not talking about people who had no control of the situation, for me that doesn’t include alcoholics, addicts and just plain ignorant people. If you can’t get famil no friends to take care of you.. opps.. sorry…

I've never planned on it and if I get it when I get to that age it'll be great.

All I can say without getting into a long multi post novella . . .

Privatizing SS is stupid.

Not having a guaranteed return is stupid.

Imagine having your nest egg ready, You are playing it safe and have a nice portfolio of diversified stocks spitting out dividends.

It is June 1, 2007 and you just retired. The dow just hit 13,668.11

On Feb 20, 2009, the DJIA is at 7,949.09 Your portfolio, assuming it tracked the DJIA is down greater than 40% of its value. Those dividends are cut to near zero because the companies ain't making money.

That is not a way to live in retirement.

Same here 5

As a business owner, between the money I paid in for myself and for just my own employer's share, even if I put it all in a savings account drawing 1% interest, I could have retired comfortably years ago.

My retirement plan does include SS and I expect it will be there when the time comes but we have a contingency plan should it all go away. It involves a tighter budget but I wanted to make sure we could survive without SS if the bastards in DC take it all away.

~Scamp

I don’t disagree with you or VAB. But unfortunately life sometimes is not an even playing field for everyone. That is why these programs should not be touched.

I paid into it, my wife paid into it, I have matched my employees 6.2%. It was never the governments money. Initially the government was not supposed to touch the SS funds other to invest them. They were not supposed to leverage these trust funds. But Mr. Carters administration decided that he could do that to fight stagflation.

Then Regan administration comes along and says let’s tax it (secondary tax) since the employers can write off as a business expense.

Then they decided if your income is higher than $34,000.00. It can be taxed up to 85%.

I will be taking every penny as will my wife we can get for as long as we draw breath. As I have stated before.. I could have retired on my investment of my own SS had I been able to invest that myself. As an employer I pay 12.4% for my own.

All of you discounting the approximately $275,000.00. ( as an average for an average employee) Using the rule of 72, and putting away your own investment’s, you do the math.

People who say that the initial money leveraged from you automatically is just insignificant. I disagree..

Oh Yes we took it early and invest it monthly doing options, trading etc etc along the way.. Its what we earned and its our money.. If it was up to us we would have rather kept the mine then pay into SS... but we could not opt out with the work we did.

Now we are still paying them 22% monthly in taxes and still owe at the end of tax season.. yes we work hard for what we do!

Our plans are similar to VAB. We are not counting on needing it but are sure going to take it once we are of age. There is wisdom in proper advance financial planning versus leaving yourself vulnerable to a bunch of Politicians.

"It can move the cap on the annual income."

Yep, and that's my preferred first lever. The current cap on annual earnings subject to Social Security taxes is $160,200, an increase of $17,200 over last year. So, some progress, but there's no reason at all to both have a cap and consistently publicly bemoan shortfalls.

My second lever is to allow more immigration, because one of the reasons for shortfalls - in addition to the pockets issue of government debt incurred by having to pay Social Security interest on its investments in government instruments - is a shrinking workforce relative to SS beneficiaries.

The problem with SS is that people are not looking at what the GOP's plans are and have been since day one.

Look back at the New Deal plans. They want to undo every fucking thing that FDR did. Well, except one, perhaps. FDR took us off the gold standard.

Now, remove SS and what do you have? Hello . . . welcome to the 1920s again. This time with medicare. People will live longer. Now they will be destitute.

What is interesting is that people are missing some weird mechanics here.

Let's start with something Mickey likes to claim: FACT. SS has taken in more than it has sent out since its inception. SS has tons of levers to play with. It can adjust the amount it charges as a percentage of income. It can move the cap on the annual income. It can adjust the number of periods required to get full benefits. And of course, on the expense side, it can adjust the age of retirement as well as the payout.

But here is where the lever on the income side gets weird. Right now, any excess income is sold out as a treasury bill. This means that the right hand and left hand owe each other. This is part of our national debt figure. IIRC it is about 3 trillion of the national debt. The sale of the T Bills means income into the treasury for congress to spend on. In simple terms, it is kinda like Congress winning Powerball every week. The problem though is that this is now a debt that congress has and with that, it has interest payments on it.

What Manchin proposed is interesting. He wants to raise the cap on payments into SS. This may be a knee-jerk reaction though. In 2021 SS had to draw down 56 billion from the fund. Yes, that year there was a shortfall. People are freaking out about it. But it makes perfect sense if you see what happened in 2020. If the economy doesn't contract like it did in 2020 and Manchin's proposal goes through, what does it do? It increases the national debt! Why? Because SS will have more income than expenses, again, and have to sell off the excess cash, increasing the debt.

Right now, I think Manchin's proposal should be looked at. I actually think it should go through. I also think that the expenditures need to go up. SS was intended to be an insurance policy that did not leave elderly people with the choice of starving and destitute or just offing themselves. It was a moral and economic policy. SS recipients tend to spend all the money they get, it ain't sitting there idle. Except of course, if you are one of the few that are wealthy enough to not need it.

scamp...who don't pay tax anyway

"Raise the contribution to cutoff to 500k solvent for 40 years..make it a million solvent forever...exactly what is the issue with that?"

The problem is, the gop has convinced its followers that this is excess taxation when in reality, it would affect less than 20% of the wealthiest Americans.

~Scamp

Raise the contribution to cutoff to 500k solvent for 40 years..make it a million solvent forever...exactly what is the issue with that?

So lets go broke instead and no one gets it!

How about we do away with all perks for GVT employees, reckless spending, all the spending on illegals.. shall we go on... how many billions in Covid fraud ?? !

Spend , spend spend.. thats all most politicians know! Oh wait Sar cant see this we blocked him years ago...

Our retirement plan involves ignoring social security.

IMO the chances of us reaching the age to qualify for it and no government finding a way to disqualify us from it (such as having too much wealth) are low enough that it's not a good idea to expect it.