Are you certain that you do?
See below.....
"
Government employees in Galveston, Brazoria and Matagorda Counties have controlled their private retirement plan for 30 years. They opted out of Social Security before Congress changed the law in 1983 to prevent others from withdrawing.
Though the private program has its critics — and some say it does not provide all of the important benefits many destitute Americans claim through Social Security —
many in these counties consider their system superior.
In 1981, when Galveston County employees pulled out of the Social Security system, the program was projected to be insolvent by 2010, said Rick Gornto, the designer of the Alternate Plan and president of First Financial Benefits, the company that manages the retirement accounts. “People in Texas are very independent minded, and they stepped out and challenged the system,” he said.
In the Alternate Plan, retirement benefits are a direct result of employee contributions. In each paycheck, employees contribute 13.9 percent of the their gross pay (6.1 percent from the employee, 7.8 percent from the county) to a private account.
In a hypothetical calculation, Mr. Gornto said,
an employee who earned $25,000 annually for 40 years could retire with a 20-year payout of $2,297 a month under the Alternate Plan. Under the same circumstances, an employee making $125,000 annually could retire with a payout of $11,490 a month.
Social Security benefits change depending on the yearly adjustment for inflation, the year of retirement, and the age of the worker. But
at a maximum, a worker who retires in 2011 at age 66 could receive $2,366 a month in Social Security benefits."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/u...curity-works-in-galveston.html?pagewanted=all
In 2008 our more aggressive investments lost half their value. Our more conservative investments only took about a 25% hit. But even if we had lost half our investment in 2008, we would have been better off four fold than we are by paying social security all these years.
As I posted on another thread focused on comparing private retirement accounts with Social Security today:
If, when I first started working for a living, I had conservatively invested the same amount as the FICA deductions from my paycheck:
1. I would now have an investment account worth well over $1 million and would be enjoying a comfortable retirement income off that investment of between $50k and $100k per year.
2. I would likely have no debts and the money would be mine to re-invest, spend, give away, or whatever i wanted to do with it.
3. I can transfer all or part of my account to somebody else as I wish or bequeath it to my heirs who would receive the full balance (less any applicable taxes) when I died.
4. No matter what happens, the money is my private property and is therefore Constitutionally protected.
However, the same amount in Social Security taxes confiscated by the government results in a situation in which:
1. I receive a bit more than $13k a year in Social Security benefits which by no means covers the mortgage, taxes, and living expenses, let alone provides much in the way of quality of life. If single it does however entitle me to be ranked among the poorest of Americans.
2. I cannot draw on any yet unspent monies of the funds I have contributed. The government however has spent that money rather than putting it aside to at least grow by drawing interest.
3. If I die before I draw any monies from my account or before I have used all that I have paid in, the government takes the money. It is not available to my spouse or heirs.
4. There is no constitutional provision protecting my social security account and absolutely nothing to prevent Congress from ending the program tomorrow in which case the government could legally keep every nickle we have paid in and would have to give us nothing. We have absolutely no protection other than the generosity of those elected to the House and Senate. Obama had plenty of ability to make good on threats to withhold social security payments if the debt ceiling was not raised.
For anybody with any sense, it is a no brainer.
And yet the addiction to a concept of never having to take responsibility for ourselves because we trust the government to take care of us is powerful and extremely difficult to break. On Wiseacre's President's thread, it was pointed out that the addiction started small and insignificant with the Social Security Act, but that is what started the snowball rolling. And it has changed the character and culture of America to one of freedome loving and personal responsibility in which people learned to manage and save their money to a culture of entitlement, debt, and dependency.
