Social Security Pros & Cons

[TJSum]

Never take advice from SS or the IRS without confirming it with an independent financial advisor or accountant.

 

[Lynne]

https://FAQ.ssa.gov/link/portal/340...k-and-get-Social-Security-retirement-benefits

What counts as earnings:

When we figure out how much to deduct from your benefits, we count only the wages you make from your job or your net earnings if you're self-employed. We include bonuses, commissions, and vacation pay. We don't count pensions, annuities, investment income, interest, veterans, or other government or military retirement benefits.

Your benefits may increase when you work:

As long as you continue to work, even if you are receiving benefits, you will continue to pay Social Security taxes on your earnings. However, we will check your record every year to see whether the additional earnings you had will increase your monthly benefit. If there is an increase, we will send you a letter telling you of your new benefit amount.

 

[residentialguy]

They say SS will run out of money, but the Govt has a plan for you!
Welfare: a source you can live your life on...and many do.

 

[Lynne]

They say SS will run out of money, but the Govt has a plan for you!
Welfare: a source you can live your life on...and many do.

I've been working & paying since I was 16. I'll be 62 late January and will happily receive a monthly installment of a very small portion of what I've paid in. I've Never asked or received any Govt assistance!

To be honest I'm somewhat insulted at your response.

 

[timd354]

I've been working & paying since I was 16. I'll be 62 late January and will happily receive a monthly installment of a very small portion of what I've paid in. I've Never asked or received any Govt assistance!

To be honest I'm somewhat insulted at your response.

The whole social security system is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme through which older generations have systematically looted money from those who are younger. All of the money that was put into the supposed social security trust fund has been spent by the preceding generations in order finance their profligate government spending and the welfare state that they did not want to pay for themselves by taxing themselves at a rate that was sufficient to pay for the benefits that they afforded themselves and now the younger generations of workers will end up paying for the older generations' social security/welfare plus the additional massive federal debts that the older generations have left behind.

So go ahead and be insulted, but keep in mind that we are all participating in a wholesale massive theft from those generations that follow us and keep your fingers crossed that the younger generation does revolt before you leave this earth and have had your chance to sponge up all of the benefits that you think that you somehow earned or are entitled to.

Its sad that many people think that social security is not government assistance....of course the whole thing was designed to be a sham from the get go....that's why social security and other payroll taxes are not called taxes by the government but are called FICA - Federal Insurance Contributions Act - but they are taxes, since unlike most insurance or pension contributions, you cannot opt out and the Supreme Court has ruled on numerous occasions that this is a tax and paying this tax confers no property rights in the promised SSI benefits

 

[EddieB]

Where the govt spent the money I have put in the system through this forced taxation, is their problem.

Whatever I do receive is a benefit not an assistance.

 

[Lynne]

The whole social security system is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme through which older generations have systematically looted money from those who are younger. All of the money that was put into the supposed social security trust fund has been spent by the preceding generations in order finance their profligate government spending and the welfare state that they did not want to pay for themselves by taxing themselves at a rate that was sufficient to pay for the benefits that they afforded themselves and now the younger generations of workers will end up paying for the older generations' social security/welfare plus the additional massive federal debts that the older generations have left behind.

So go ahead and be insulted, but keep in mind that we are all participating in a wholesale massive theft from those generations that follow us and keep your fingers crossed that the younger generation does revolt before you leave this earth and have had your chance to sponge up all of the benefits that you think that you somehow earned or are entitled to.

Its laughable that many people think that social security is not government assistance.

Thank you, Tim, for your opinion rude as it is. I never said that SS was not government assistance. What I said was "I've Never asked or received any Govt assistance" Which is true up until February of 2018. I don't know you & you don't know me enough to even guess what my life experience has been. Let alone how many life-altering situations have occurred in those 46 years. I'm proud to say that "I've Never asked or received any Govt assistance" up until Feb 2018.

 

[Lynne]

Where the govt spent the money I have put in the system through this forced taxation, is their problem.

Whatever I do receive is a benefit not an assistance.

I agree!

 

[timd354]

Where the govt spent the money I have put in the system through this forced taxation, is their problem.

Whatever I do receive is a benefit not an assistance.

Whether or not it makes you feel better to think that you receive what you like to call a benefit or whether it is called by others assistance or welfare, the point is that the older generation is receiving money from a system that they never fully funded and is leaving behind a huge and crushing mountain of unsustainable debt to be paid for by future generations because the older generations continuously and repeatedly elected politicians that handed out benefits and spent in a profligate manner, thereby robbing future generations blind. I am old enough that although I won't even think about collecting SSI for over a decade yet, I am also part of a generation that has and will continue to participate in the wholesale theft of our children's future. The cycle will no doubt continue until the whole system flies apart or is propped up by hyperinflation at some point in the future since the inherent flaw of the republican form of government is that politicians get elected by promising benefits without raising taxes to pay for those benefits and the average voter is too stupid to understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

If none of that bothers you and you somehow think that you "earned" what you receive in so-called benefits, then good for you but do realize that we are all collectively leaving our children with a crap future as the outstanding federal debt works out to over $160,000 per taxpayer and over $62,500 per citizen...and the biggest budget items in the federal government budget are Medicare and Social Security. The really odd thing is that the wealthiest (net worth) age group by far of all Americans is senior citizens (people over 65), yet the younger generations are being used to subsidize the older, wealthier generations....there is something seriously wrong with that.

 

[Lynne]

"Social Security Pros & Cons" is the thread, not a debate as to anything else.