and now the other sides of the coin...You keep changing the subject from SS to welfare. They are NOT the same.Except many people didn't save for retirement for many reasons, that's why we SS in the first place:The reality is that only about 1/2 of Americans are in the stock market.8. Did I mention that Social Security is a scam????
Madoff would be proud of it!
âSocial Security takes a whopping 12.4 percent of American workersâ [and employers'] paychecks, but a new backgrounder by The Heritage Foundation shows that workers are getting a bad deal from the program.
⌠Social Security typically provides very lowâand in many cases, negativeârates of return.
The Heritage Foundation analysis shows that younger workersâeven low-wage onesâwould receive at least three times greater rates of return from private savings than Social Security will provide.â
3 Examples of How Social Security Robs Americans of Greater Income Before, During Retirement
âHeritageâs analysis compares what workers would receive if their payroll taxes were invested in personal accounts compared with what Social Security will provide under two scenarios:
1) current law, with roughly 20 percent benefit cuts beginning around 2034;
and 2) a scenario whereby payroll taxes rise immediately to a level necessary to pay the programâs prescribed benefits.
While virtually all workersâacross income levels, both genders, and generationsâwould be far better off with personal savings than Social Security, younger workers get the worst deal from the government program.â
DailySignal, Op. Cit.
Here's where we get into exactly who Social Security actually helps.....and why it's a scam.
âThe average young male worker is virtually guaranteed a negative rate of return from Social Security.â
A 23-yr-old with a salary of $60,000 âHe will pay $547,088 in Social Security taxes (excluding disability insurance taxes) throughout his lifetime. In return, he will receive a monthly benefit of $2,209 in retirement.
If he instead invested that same amountâ$547,088âin a conservative mix of stocks and bonds, he would accumulate more than $1.5 million in a retirement account and could use that to purchase a lifetime annuity that would pay him $6,185 per month, or nearly three times what Social Security will provide.â
3 Examples of How Social Security Robs Americans of Greater Income Before, During Retirement
ButâŚ.if he had that control of the money, politicians would not be able to syphon off the money, and pretend that it goes into some âlock boxâ reserved to pay him when he retires.
Who gets all the Social Security money.....
....and who gets a promise?
Yeah, which means that 1/2 Americans will end up impoverished, living off the government.
This is why the older generation was better. They taught people to live modestly and save for retirement.
- putting food on the table now vs tomorrow
- financial ignorance or folly
- bad luck with health o r loss of job
- assuming their kids will take care of them but the kids can't or won't (maybe they had to move for work)
What a dunce you are.
The entire 'welfare' system is simply a vote buying scheme.
Economist Jim Powell, in âFDRâs Folly,â notes that a disproportionate amount of FDRâs relief and public works spending âwent not to the poorest states such as the South, but to western states were people were better off , apparently because there were âswingâ states which could yield FDR more votes in the next election.â
That basis for charity and welfare continues to this day!
Many Liberals are simply this dumb and easy to manipulate.
But far more are cowards who tremble at ever questioning their masters.....for example, asking why after half a century and $22 trillion, the poverty rate is nearly the same as it was when the 'War On Poverty' began.
According to the US Supreme Court they are the same.
Honestly, there is no way to look at Social Security, as anything other than a general welfare benefit.
Is Social Security Welfare? â The Future of Freedom Foundation
Since the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare became the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services in 1979, the term âwelfareâ has fallen into disuse. âIncome security,â âentitlement,â or âpublic assistance programsâ are now the usual terms for what used to...www.fff.org
Highlights:
- Social Security benefits not connected to how much you pay in. If you have two men, who earn the same income, one works for 45 years, and the other 35 years, both will get identical benefits.
- According to Title XI, section 1104 of the Social Security Act, congress can change tax rates, or benefits, with zero compensation to people paying in, or those collecting benefits, whenever they please.
- US Supreme Court case Helvering v. Davis (1937), ruled âthe proceeds of both [employee and employer] taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way.â
- US Supreme Court case Fleming v. Nestor (1960), ruled "To engraft upon Social Security a concept of âaccrued property rightsâ would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands and which Congress probably had in mind when it expressly reserved the right to alter, amend or repeal any provision of the Act.
- Social Security benefits have zero property rights. If you don't collect, then you simply don't get the money. If I die, my bank account, my properties, my 401K and my life insurance police, will all be collected by my extended family, and passed on. If you die with no dependents under Social Security, even if paying into the system your entire life, everything you paid in, is simply gone.
- Social Security benefits can be taxes, up to 85% of your benefits. If I put money in my account, and then withdraw it, am I taxed? If I invest in a 401K, and withdraw it at retirement, am I taxed? (only on the growth in certain situations).
So let me recap all that for you:
Social Security is a welfare program. That *IS* what it is.
- US Supreme Court says, all the money you pay in, goes in as general revenue. It is spent, and gone.
- US Supreme Court says, you have no property rights to Social Security, anymore than a person on food stamps and welfare has property rights to those things.
- US Social Security Act itself says, the government can change how much you are required to pay in, and how much you can get out, at will without warning or compensation. Just like any other welfare program.
- Social Security does not pay out, based on what you pay in, like any other insurance of investment.
- Social Security can be taxed, unlike a savings account or retirement account.
- Social Security does not guarantee you anything. If you die without collecting, then you simply don't collect, just like any other welfare program.
Your money, that you pay in Social Security tax, goes to the same place as the Gasoline tax, as the Corporate tax, as the Estate Tax, as your income Tax, as your Medicare Tax.
They are all general revenue taxes, sent to the Federal Government, and are spent.
Social Security benefits are paid out of General Revenue... just like the military, Food stamps, court systems, the FBI, Public House, and any other government spending.
Social Security = welfare. Fact.
Highlights:
- Social Security is mainly a means of insuring against economic risk. It is fundamentally an insurance program, not a saving program, and as such it is not welfare.
- The six major welfare programs are EITC, housing assistance, Medicaid, SNAP, SSI, and TANF. Welfare programs differ from entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security
Robert Samuelson is making the same wrong argument about Social Security being welfare that he's been making for years:
Since he is rolling out the same old column (and apparently getting paid for it), I'll just roll out the same old response. This is from March, 2005, just a few weeks after I started this blog:Why Social Security is welfare, by Robert J. Samuelson: ...Here is how I define a welfare program: First, it taxes one group to support another group, meaning it's pay-as-you-go and not a contributory scheme where people's own savings pay their later benefits. And second, Congress can constantly alter benefits, reflecting changing needs, economic conditions and politics. Social Security qualifies on both counts.
Fire Insurance is not Welfare and Neither is Social Security: Robert Samuelson, and many others, appear to believe that any time there is a transfer of income between individuals or groups it is welfare. This is wrong. According to Samuelson:
Not it isnât. Social Security is mainly a means of insuring against economic risk. It is fundamentally an insurance program, not a saving program, and as such it is not "mainly welfare."Welfare is a governmental transfer from one group to another for the benefit of those receiving. The transfer involves cash or services (health care, education). We have welfare for the poor, the old, the disabled, farmers and corporations. Social Security is mainly welfare...
Just because an economic activity transfers income from one person or group to another does not make it welfare. Fire insurance transfers income. Some people pay premiums for their whole lives and collect nothing. Others, the unlucky few who suffer a fire, collect far more than they contribute. Does that make it welfare? Of course not.
Social Security is no different, it is an insurance program against economic risk as I explain in this Op-Ed piece. Some people will live long lives and collect more than they contribute in premiums, some will die young and collect less. Some children will lose their parents and collect more than their parents paid into the system, others will not. But this does not make it welfare.
Is gambling welfare? Gambling transfers income from one person to another. Does that make it welfare? Loaning money transfers income when the loan is paid back with interest. Are people who receive interest income on welfare?
There is an important distinction between needing insurance ex-ante and needing it ex-post. Insurance does redistribute income ex-post, but that doesn't imply that it was a bad deal ex-ante (i.e., when people start their work lives). ...
Angry Bear agrees with me on this and the two of us have been independently saying the same thing (in fact, I first encountered AB in a Google search on Social Security, insurance, and risk). As AB said (the full text is well worth reading):
When I think of welfare, I think of pure money transfers from one group to another without any economic basis for the transfer. In such cases, one personâs gain arises from anotherâs loss. But economic activity that results in the exchange of goods and services is different. It is not a zero sum game. One personâs gain does not come at the expense of someone else.What does all of this have to do with Social Security? Those who are hard-working, fortunate, and not too profligate will have a large nest egg at retirement and Social Security will account for only a small portion of their retirement portfolio. This is tantamount to paying for insurance and then not needing it. This happens all the time -- every year someone fails to get sick or injured and, while surely happy in their good health, would have been better off not buying insurance. That's the nature of insurance: if you don't need it, then you'll always wish you hadn't purchased it. Only in the context of retirement insurance is this considered a crisis.
On the other hand, those with bad luck or insufficient income will not have a nest egg at retirement. Because of Social Security, instead of facing the risk of zero income at retirement, they are guaranteed income sufficient to subsist.
This is precisely like the insurance example I worked through above: people with good outcomes will wish they hadn't paid into the insurance fund; those with bad outcomes will be glad they did. Ex-ante, everyone benefits from the insurance. Overall, society is better off because risk is reduced; because people are risk-averse, the gains are quite large.
The main feature of Social Security is not welfare as Samuelson asserts. The main feature is insurance against economic risks and as such it makes us collectively better off. Calling it welfare when it isnât is misleading and causes unnecessary class distinctions and resentments from the losers ex-post. More importantly, it ignores and obscures the important role Social Security plays in society as insurance against the economic risks we all face.
If you think you are so rich and powerful that you donât need such insurance, consider this. The stock market collapse of 1929 at the onset of the Great Depression wiped out substantial quantities of wealth. The typical stock was worth only one sixth its pre-crash value once the bottom was reached. Whatever insurance existed in the stock market evaporated as the crash unfolded.
It wasnât the poor jumping out of windows on Wall street. If you think it canât happen to you, think again.