Reposting from another thread:
Social security has been 10-15 years away from being insolvent for 80 years. It will always be 10-15 years away from being insolvent because of the way it’s calculated.
When the CBO or whoever scores it they can predict certain things like the number of recipients, the size of their payments, and inflation. They aren’t allowed to take into account things that Congress may (but definitely will) do in the future, like raising the cap on social security taxes roughly with inflation. It went up from $160200 in 2023 to $168600 in 2024. This is a rare bipartisan, uncontroversial thing. Congress almost always follows the SSA recommendation exactly.
It would be more accurate to say “if the social security cap stays at $168600 for 10 years, social security will be insolvent.”
The people pushing this bullshit know it’s bullshit. They do it to make people think they’ll never get social security so they can get enough voters on board with killing it, like they’ve been trying to do for 88 years.
Don’t fall for it.
It’s still time to scrap the cap of $168,600 income that has to pay in. Pay the full amount on all our income, or GTFO of the US.
Says the kender? An entire RPG culture based on “innocent” theft and misappropriation? Hunh.
That’s populism, and left populism is pretty strong here.
They spend more as they get in, it will run out. No amount of tomfoolery will change that.
They’ve been saying that my entire life, my dad’s entire life, and when my dad was my age, my grandfather would tell him he’s heard the same things his entire life going back to the 40s.
For a couple decades the disingenuous doom -and-gloomers told us no way could social security ever deal with the baby boomers. All through the 80s and 90s they told us we might as well privatize it or kill it all together. The only time wall street shut up about it was when they were too busy jerking off to the thought of getting their hands on that money. Well, the youngest of the boomers turn 60 in '24, they’re almost all in and the end times keep getting pushed back, from the 80s to the 90s to the 00s to the 10s to the 20s and now 2035. It’s like a doomsday cult that keeps pushing the date when the apocalypse doesn’t arrive at the appointed time.
You’ll have to excuse me for not getting worked up over the 40th new year I’ve heard for the sky falling.
And for what it’s worth, managing the COLAs, the cap, the percentages, and anything else the SSA has done throughout it’s existence isn’t “tomfoolery,” it’s accounting. And damn good accounting so far. The SSA being such a well run government institution probably makes republicans hate them almost as much as the tax itself.
LOL, just posted the same, but not nearly so learned or eloquent.
KIDS: You’re getting your Social Security. And remember, us old folks are not going to go senile and vote against it!
It’s called the “third rail” of American politics for a reason. Touch it, you die.
third rail
People here making 90s talking points like they’re still relevant in this political climate. Have you seen the people Republicans vote for? Have you seen this Supreme Court?
That shit is out the window.
Sure upto now it’s been fine…
But a WHOLE LOT of new people will be getting check soon…
And military and debt spending are through the roof And the normal people are paying groceries and rent with their credit card…
I’m. Sure they’ll solve it tho, last minute.
That exact comment would be at home in a letter to the editor in response to an article in any newspaper, in any year, for the past 80 years. And on any discussion board from the earliest days of the internet until now.
I’m not going to make any assumptions about your age or the length of time you’ve paid attention to these issues, but if it’s only been a decade or so, you should start seeing the pattern soon. It won’t even be at the last minute, it’ll just keep slowly moving out so it’s always 10-15 years away. Don’t let them scare you into helping them do what they’ve been trying for 88 years.
This program has kept a lot of elderly and disabled people out of poverty. Don’t let them take it.
The current trust fund is > $2T.
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No.
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“Tomfoolery”? Step away from the idiot box, gramps.
Sure granny, go believe them,I’m sure those 2 trillion arnt in some loss leading 1% government bonds
Have you not been paying attention to what the Fed has been doing? Pardon my language but shoving cash up my asshole earns more than 1% these days.
In 2022, before most of the rate hikes, the trust fund earned $66.4 billion. This year’s high, and hopefully very temporary, interest rates aside, it’ll usually be around 2.5-3%.
I’m not sure what you think loss leading means or why you’re using it here, but governments storing reserve money earmarked for a specific purpose in their own bonds isn’t unusual or a bad thing. Should they stuff it under a mattress earning 0%? Should they risk it in the markets? Unsecured domestic bonds? Foreign bonds?
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Those poor millionaires, being asked to contribute to society. How could you?!
Hey. These hard working millionaires are tricking this money down by buying stocks and investing in real estate and then upping the price of rent to continue to increase their wealth so they can push to the next tier of millionaire".
Which they’ve hired accountants to do for them. But I assure you, their work lunches are exhausting
A cap is so stupid. The only benefit of a cap is to people who don’t need to contribute after the cap. It doesn’t help society, it doesn’t help social security. It shouldn’t be “I contributed enough this year, see ya later as I climb my piles of money!!”
That’s exactly right. They did that because they don’t need it and don’t want to pay into it. Our education system is horrible, imagine if people without kids in school were able to just not pay into the education system? This is the same as that.
Our (I’m from UK) governments are so fucked up every decision is to make the rich richer. At this point I have no idea how the western world can break out of this corruption
$168,600
That’s the cap. It is clearly and obviously only benefiting the rich. Absolutely insane.
It also benefits the upper middle class. And middle class in HCOL areas.
It should be adjusted based on cost of living.
Making $150k in NYC is like making $50k in middle america.
Is this accurate?
I literally do not care about the upper middle class.
No, it isn’t. That’s bullshit, a talking point designed to get you to give up on supporting it politically.
But do you know what would help it in actuarial terms? 2 things:
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raise the federal minimum wage
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remove the cap on income subject to the social security tax
When suppressing wages became a bipartisan affair, it hurt Social Security just as much as it did workers on the low end of the wage scale.
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Stop spreading this BS. SS going bankrupt is misinformation.
I want to believe. Can you provide sources for that claim?
not just social security. top income tax bracket is at the begining of 6 figures and of course there is a discount to corporate tax rates and if you don’t make your money through labor.
As someone who hits the cap and lives in a place where even monthly premium payments for our healthcare have been scrapped, I am really sure it’s time to open up BOTH of them again.
Sure, it’s a cost. Sure, it’s less cash in my pocket. But holy hell, we need to keep the cash going into the system so the next right-wing nutters can’t gut the services via some “fiscal responsibility” bullshit.
SS Works is
A poorly thought out tag
So just to translate for non Americans: Social Security is a kind of guaranteed old age / retirement pension, by the looks of it.
Yea. 6.2% of each paycheck is taken out for SS and your employer will match it. Then, when you turn 67, you are of retirement age and will start reciecving monthly checks proportional to your income when you were working. There are exceptions but that’s generally how it goes
Exceptions like the entire millennial generation
“set to run out”
Source? Man I wish Lemmy could have developed its own culture without every miserable thing from r/All coming in here to peddle the usual toxic negativity from Reddit.
Worthless ass Twitter repost
Image Transcription: Twitter Post
Social Security Works, @SSWorks
A worker making $50,000 a year contributes to Social Security on 100% of their income.
A CEO making $20 million a year contributes to Social Security on less than 1% of their income.
It’s time to scrap the cap
At least in principle, social security is a mandatory way of saving for retirement, not simply a tax. In that context, it makes sense that contributions are capped since payouts are capped.
Then why are CEO’s even paying for it?
It’s the shittiest way possible to save for retirement.
Right, but it’s not really and hasn’t been for a while. It’s at best a ponzi scheme and a lot of us have been left holding the bag.
It’s time to make it what it always should have been, a little touch of socialism so that people don’t die/go hungry/end up homeless when they are too old to work.
Social Security is not “a mandatory way of saving for retirement,” that’s a bullshit way of looking at it. You are not putting money into an account, and getting that money back when you retire. It 100% is a tax. Tax is not a bad word. It’s a social safety net, payouts should be capped, but contributions should not be (or if they are, it should be much much higher).
That’s how functioning societies work.
Fucking lazy-ass boomers getting my money.
Lazy-ass boomers that paid into SS their entire lives? Those lazy-ass boomers?
Ah, the legacy of Bill Clinton. Found some money, but it was just plundering Social Security.
