Repeat after me. Social Security is INSURANCE.

[eridani]

It is not an investment. It is insurance against the possibility that your retirement investments might not work out as well as you think they will, and against the possibility that your savings may be depleted by circumstances over which you have no control.

It is not welfare. Those who pay for Social Security INSURANCE are ENTITLED to payouts. Your car insutance has to pay the agreed amount if you total your car. They can't refuse because you have enough in your savings to replace the car without their help.

Social Security is INSURANCE.
It is not an investment.
It is not welfare.

Social Security is INSURANCE.
It is not an investment.
It is not welfare.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[billyoc]

1. It's dead, whatever it was. n/t

[eridani]

3. Not if we fight back. n/t

[TBF]

2. More importantly, for the majority, it is the only thing they got -

and they're going to lose it now.

[SheilaT]

4. It's not actually

insurance, the way insurance is normally structured.

It's a pay as you go system, in which current workers pay so that retired workers have an income.

What does not help at all is how many times for the past thirty years or more (I'm 62) I've heard people my own age say that it won't be there when they retire. Not because they were particularly prescient, but because the Republican/Conservative attack on SS has been around at least that long, and peopole who should know better have been buying into that notion. Not that very many of those acquaintances did much about saving just in case SS wasn't there when they retired.

[eridani]

5. Car insurance is pay as you go as well

They use what they take in to cover what they pay out. Besides which, for boomers is is NORE than paying for current beneficiaries--we have prepaid our own retirements as well.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/hartmann/10015

Coincidentally, the actuaries at the Social Security Administration were beginning to get worried about the Baby Boomer generation, who would begin retiring in big numbers in fifty years or so. They were a "rabbit going through the python" bulge that would require a few trillion more dollars than Social Security could easily collect during the same 20 year or so period of their retirement. We needed, the actuaries said, to tax more heavily those very persons who would eventually retire, so instead of using current workers' money to pay for the Boomer's Social Security payments in 2020, the Boomers themselves would have pre-paid for their own retirement.

Reagan got Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alan Greenspan together to form a commission on Social Security reform, along with a few other politicians and economists, and they recommend a near-doubling of the Social Security tax on the then-working Boomers. That tax created - for the first time in history - a giant savings account that Social Security could use to pay for the Boomers' retirement.

This was a huge change. Prior to this, Social Security had always paid for today's retirees with income from today's workers (it still is today). The Boomers were the first generation that would pay Social Security taxes both to fund current retirees and save up enough money to pay for their own retirement. And, after the Boomers were all retired and the savings account - called the "Social Security Trust Fund" - was all spent, the rabbit would have finished its journey through the python and Social Security could go back to a "pay as you go" taxing system.

[fasttense]

7. Wrong!!!!!

"It's a pay as you go system, in which current workers pay so that retired workers have an income."

This is pure SPIN. It changed back in 1983 with Raygun. He not only slowly raised the retirement age, he doubled the Social Security tax on workers while giving a huge tax cut to the uber rich. The DOUBLED Social Security tax on working Baby Boomers was to pay BOTH for their parents' retirement and their own retirement. That's why we needed the huge Social Security Trust Fund that is now over $2 TRILLION.

Baby Boomers were the 1st generation to double pay for their Social Security retirement. And now our gubermint is reniging on the deal. So predictable.

[SammyWinstonJack]

14. +1. nt

[FormerDittoHead]

11. I was one of those people...

In THE NINETEEN SEVENTIES, I bought a book called, "Social Security, the Fraud in Your Future"

http://www.amazon.com/Social-Security-Fraud-Your-Future/dp/0026105500

They have cheap used copies available, but the main thrust of the book is that we have this inescapable thing called the Baby Boom which means that the disproportionate number of people paying into the system then (and now) will become a disproportionate number of people trying to get money out of the system AND NO ONE IS ADDRESSING THIS INEVITABLE CHANGE AND HOW WE'RE GOING TO HANDLE IT.

As an accountant, I've advised by clients to avoid paying SS by channeling their money into rental income rather than earned income because I just didn't (and don't) see there being a very bright future for ones money there. That advice was, of course, based upon an assumption that other investments would remain stable. Whoops.

[exboyfil]

6. It is welfare if you consider

that lower income individuals are subsidized by higher income individuals. You could pass a law saying anything and that becomes an entitlement. It still does not change the fact that you are getting something which you did not pay for. That is welfare. If the payout levels were equivalent by income instead of staggered (90%, 32%, 15%). then you could argue it is insurance. An odd form of insurance when you dollars over about $9K/yr are only insuranced at 32%, and your dollars over $55K/yr are only insuranced at 15%. Additionally all partipants before 1983 had half the withholding percentages or less than those who came after.

Now I think guaranteeing everyone has a minimum income in retirement is a good thing, and the main problem I have with Social Security is that it does not ask higher earners to contribute to the subsidization (cutoff at $105K).

[FormerDittoHead]

8. Why the word play? It's nothing like insurance. It's a pension system.

I'm thinking you want to play with these words to get us (and others) to think a certain way but it's wrong headed.

Insurance is something you get only if 'something' happens. (fire in the house, car gets stolen)

For Social Security, most everyone lives past 65 (whatever, not the point here), and when they do, they will get monthly payments in proportion to their contributions for the rest of their lives.

If I stop making payments to insurance FOR ONE MONTH my coverage stops. Period. And that's forever, even after I reach 65.

If I stopped working today (actually I'm not working today), put no more money into the system from this point, the money that I put into Social Security will define my benefits when I become old enough to collect.

It is not insurance.

[notesdev]

9. Not according to the government

According to the official position of the US government, Social Security is a tax which imposes no obligation on the government to spend the revenues collected for the stated purpose.

[FormerDittoHead]

13. Here's the problem with that.

I understand that the money goes into the general fund however...

The problem is that, if the gov't says, "We're not going to pay out SS any more"...

...THE FUCK IF I'M GOING TO PAY SOCIAL SECURITY TAX ANY LONGER!

Stop paying out SS, take the number of people in the "Tea Party", multiply it by FIFTY and you'll see what happens...

[notesdev]

15. They're headed down that road already

Between proposals to raise the retirement age and the inflation/COLA game that gets played to steadily reduce the real value of benefits payouts, we're already on the way to no longer paying out SS, just gradually instead of as a one-shot deal.

In terms of any actual obligation of the government to make good on SS promises, that has been explicitly disavowed by the government in court. They continue to pay out what they do not because it is considered an obligation but because of the consequences that you note would be immediate.

[FormerDittoHead]

16. You're right. The frog is now in cold water, but they're turning up the heat...

We'll have to see if the frog is smart enough to jump out, and WHEN.

I don't have my hopes up.

[iamtechus]

10. Where did you get such a silly idea?

Insurance payouts are always conditioned on one's unplanned or unexpected need.

Social Security is a pension plan. It is an entitlement. "Entitlement" is not a bad word! Calling something an entitlement simply means that you're entitled to it.

[eridani]

19. I think of pension plans as a subcategory of insurance n/t

[Evasporque]

12. it is a federal public pension....you work...you pay in...you get money out...at retirement...nt

[Subdivisions]

17. And?

You're singing to the crowd. Whatever SS and Medicare are, they are going to steal it.

[tavalon]

18. It's insurance not an entitlement

You pay in, you get some out. Maybe.

[TheWebHead]

20. well it's insurance

that pays more in reimbursements than it collects in premiums, which has been par for the course for the government across the board... making madoff-esque promises that eventually can't be kept