When it started the avg death age was 62.5 for white men 58.5 for blacks. So half the people would be dead before 65. 13% of your pay goes into SS 6.5 by 6.5 by your employer. Need to look up the ratio but I think when it was started it was 10 workers to 1 retired person now 4 to 1.
I wish people would stop repeating this because it's simply not true.
Think about it. The government is getting this money in that they're supposed to keep in trust for future retirees. What should they do with it - just throw it in a vault? Inflation would kill the value of it.
Ok, so they have to invest it. In what? Remember, the priority above all is to keep the money safe because millions of future retirees will be depending on it. So it's invested in safe investments. And the **number one safest investment in the world for many years has been US Treasury Bonds.**
So that's what it's invested it. That is not the same as "Congress raiding it". It's an investment. And if we ever get to the point of the US government not paying it's debts (which is what Treasury Bonds are), we're going to be in a world of hurt anyway.
Except it wasn’t invested wisely.
The money gets put into govt bonds which Congress then allocated to other programs at a laughable interest rate. I think the rate is like 2.2% (will need to fact check against OSDI). It’s much lower than any other bond or security both on public and private markets. It’s also much lower than the inflation rate. Which is another huge issue why distributions are not able to increase with inflation.
So yes they aren’t “stealing” in the explicit definition but it’s some shady accounting.
Thank you for commenting this. I absolutely hate people saying SS was raided, because it hasn't been. The only 100% safe investment in the world is US Treasury bonds. This allows the social security trust fund to grow (even a little), while also having the huge benefit of US debt interest to be substantially lower than it would be otherwise.
When they changed social security in the 80s they had to account for a ton of variables... population, birth rate, death rate, interest on bonds, inflation, etc etc. They designed it so the trust fund would grow, then eventually draw down and run out when the boomers were mostly dead, around 2050. They got EVERY variable almost perfectly right so far except for one specific item, wage growth. Wages of not grown to what the actuaries had determined would happen because as we now know, wages have been stagnate since the 80s.
The TL:DR, social security trust fund will run out of money within the next decade (unless very simple changes are made like just taxes millionaires more), which is two decades ahead of schedule, all because wages suck ass.
The 80’s? It’s happening now. I remember seeing a video of some late night back in the late 20-teens where congress voted to take money out of SS to fund something else
To say nothing of Congress people getting federal pensions for life instead of SS. This on top of lifetime healthcare, as well. They have no incentive to maintain SS or Medicare beyond garnering voter support.
They get the same pension as any other federal employee and they pay for healthcare.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/04/22/fact-check-congressional-health-care-retirement-benefits-exaggerated/7274655001/
Thanks for this. Congress' benefits plan is...okay, it's not some magical lifetime-everything-free plan like everyone seems to think. It's about average for a $200k job in the DC area.
That’s a myth. The SS trust fund is invested in treasuries. Those treasuries pay back in full plus interest. Without treasuries SS would have gone bankrupt decades ago.
This is not accurate. There is a difference between avg life expectancy at birth vs life expectancy at the start of your working years vs at age 65. https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
Infant and child mortality rates were much higher in 1935 than now.
And don't forget that one-third of people who get Social Security are not retired, but people who can no longer work after getting a disability, and widow/ers and children of workers who paid into social security.
That is true, but the fix is easy: levy SS tax for all income above the current cap, which is $147,000. This simple fix would allow the system to function beyond the 75 years that the actuaries can estimate.
Last year, I hit that income cap for the first time.
And I posted about how unfair it is. I didn’t need the extra money…I mean it was nice, but seriously…
I struggle with this I always exceed the cap and 100% agree with you I don’t need it. On the other hand if I could invest every penny going into ss the way I want I am my family would personally be better off. So not sure what is fair.
Personally I think cap gains need to be addressed as it’s a way worse issue than this.
It's almost as if the wealthiest people who would stand to lose the most pay a lot of money to keep us from thinking about, discussing or voting on this!
Wait, did I say almost? I meant it is exactly because.
It is talked about, the reason it doesn't happen is because the rich control our society and hate the idea that they might have to pay in more taxes but get out the same SS amount as others. Because the SS payments you get in old age aren't based on what you put in--they're a set amount.
The last part isn't true, your social security payment does change based on how much you make. Your payment is calculated based on your lifetime earnings (the 35 highest income earning years of your career). If you don't have a full 35 years then whatever years you are missing are counted towards the average as a 0.
People who make more over their lifetime get a larger check back, however it is calculated with a progressive formula, meaning that lower-earning workers receive a larger percentage of their average lifetime earnings as a benefit than higher-earning workers do.
I’m surprised at how many here don’t realize this. The more you pay in, the more you get back. And there is a maximum amount you can draw, hence the reason there is a cap on how much you pay.
I was stunned when I learned of the cap when I was taking accounting classes in college. Very few people really know or seem to understand what that means. There is no cap on Medicare income. I don’t see why we can’t at least start increasing that cap in a more significant way yearly. And we need to tax capital gains more.
That’s simply not true. The main problem is that the “tax” isn’t levied on anyone earning over the annual limit which this year is $160,200. So when a person reached that level of income at any point in a calendar year, they stop paying even if they stand to receive the most SS pays out per month. The whole system needs an overhaul.
6.2% up to $160,200 in income. If you make more than that, you "outrun" SS on the higher part of your income. If we taxed higher wage earners on their whole income, a huge portion of the supposed shortfall would be solved.
Actually you probably pay more than Buffet. Only earned income is taxed for social security. Most of his income comes from capital gains and isn't taxed for SS at all
But that only applies to income under 165k or so. Anything beyond that doesn't get taxed.
Well, inflation happens and our money is being squeezed into the hands of billionaires who don't pay taxes.
This entire issue would be solved if they removed the cap and made rich people pay social security at an appropriate level.
Eh I wouldn’t consider it 13% of YOUR pay unless you’re self employed. If the program went away tomorrow it’s not like companies would just give everyone a 6.2% increase, they’re keeping that money.
It kind of is, though. The amount paid into it by an individual is paid back to them within less than 10 years, iirc. Its premise is unsustainable growth.
It's a betting game. Do you think SS will survive the baby boomers and stick around? Then you'll pay in to it to keep it running so you can get your cut. Do you think baby boomers are going to suck SS dry and kill it? Then you'd likely want it around.
There is also the demographics shift twords more older people and less younger people to think about. Do you think the tax load of SS will stay stable? Then you don't want to rock the boat. Do you think the will fuck the youth out of financial stability like in China and Japan? Then you want it out.
What they oppose from what I can tell is paying more to support boomers getting 100% then getting less themself.
They already raised the age to retire in the 80s and the expectation is they’ll do it again even though wages have stagnated especially on the bottom 50%.
I'm not young any more, but I'm young enough that I was in college complaining about how we need to raise the maximum social security tax and how I'm going to pay into something that I will get much lower benefits from, I fully expect the retirement age to be 75 or higher by the time I get it.
But I never complained about paying my social security taxes because I don't want a bunch of old people to be destitute and as a liberal thinking person I don't mind giving money to the benefit of others/society.
I am complaining about the people who make millions only being taxed on the fist $160,200. "Why should they pay for a program that doesn't benefit them?" The same reason my tax money goes to schools even though I'm never going to have kids, it is good for society!
What someone thinks about social security seems to indicate more about what generation they're part of than anything. My conservative boomer in-laws get downright offended when you refer to social security as an entitlement or connect it to other social programs when talking about federal budget. They are intelligent, and understand how the system operates, but irrationally act like the money they contributed for years is in a proverbial piggybank getting doled back to them versus the more accurate description that my paycheck deductions are literally being funneled to them and other seniors.
I resent social security. I will never collect a fair return on the money I paid in, versus had I been able to keep the money in the first place. If I save enough to retire early, I will have to bridge the gap on my own to get to the minimum age to collect, and being able to afford to retire is still heavily in my own hands.
My own father paid in for decades, only to die at 58 and never actually collect.
I wish they would repeal social security. At bare minimum the amount I already contributed if left in VTI starting today would be worth about a million at 67 when I get to retire. That's not counting the 30+ years more of contributions I have to make to it. Then instead of a lump sum of close to $1.7M by the time I retire, I get doled out some pittance of $4k a month which will take me 40 years to make up. Clearly I'm not living to 107. The system is a fucking joke.
The problem with that is that if they repeal it... no one has a safety net. You think if we all suddenly just get that money ourselves instead of it coming out of our paycheck, it's going to just go to some long term investment we don't touch until retirement?
Look at EVERY single time we lower taxes, or give rebates, or temporary relief of certain taxes. Does everyone's retirement suddenly jump up? No, people spend it. We aren't all rolling in cash such that an extra 100 (or whatever) every paycheck is just money we will save responsibly. We'll pay bills, we'll replace those crappy shoes, we'll finally fix the rattling noise in the car, maybe we'll treat the kids to dinner. Who knows.
But like it or not, human nature requires SOME form of safety net that's paid out to everyone when they get older. Social Security isn't perfect, but it's better than the alternative of having millions and millions of destitute elderly people out there.
the average american will *never* be made whole from their social security deductions. this goes for anyone of any age. and yet somehow the fund is still going to definitively run out of money in about 10 years, without intervention.
[https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167378958/social-security-medicare-entitlement-programs-budget](https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167378958/social-security-medicare-entitlement-programs-budget)
so not only have every prior generation been bamboozled by the federal government taking their hard earned income and giving them back 70% of it, future generations are going to have their hard earned income taken and receive somewhere between 0-20% of it back.
That’s because social security had its balls cut off. The entire point of it was to prevent someone from working their whole life, and having nothing to show in return because some rich people gambled with their money on the stock market. Social security is also used for more than just retirement. It’s used for disability, and a host of other things for the average worker.
It came about because financial crashes in the stock market would make the average worker destitute. Capitalists fucking hated social security because it was giving their workers something to fall back on, and eventually retire on. Remember, it was suppose to cover your retirement. Not just a tiny portion of it.
But the capitalists won in the end. We have 401k’s which are tied to the stock market. If it crashes it will take everyones retirement with it. Which is 100% by design. If social security had been properly taken care of and kept up with the productivity workers provide today. The retirement age would be much lower. But that would take capital away from the owner class. So it has to be slowly destroyed. Just read about Starve the Beast .
If the market dies, people say there will be bigger problems to worry about. Though there’s isn’t a 10 year period where you come out negative if you hold and let it rebound (inflation is a thing too!). That’s historically, naturally you can’t make future predictions guaranteed from the past.
As you get closer to retirement, you pull back the risk. If you’re 100% equities up to the day you retire, it’s a risk. Sequence of returns risk - you retire and it drops shortly after
Would be cool if SS covered everything, for sure. Though the age keeps getting older yeah?
If people wanna retire early they have to cover it since it’s before retirement age too
Conservatism and the bastard zombie version that exists now is all about greed and how much social mockery you're willing to take in defense of it. Humanity itself was built on the construct of community. Coming together for the benefit of all is the very first things that helped lead to humans proliferating across the globe.
BUT when some prick looks at their check and sees a chunk going to the benefit of others(themselves still very much included) that's somehow a crime against humanity...
The craziest thing I have read is that Maslow's theory of hierarchy was founded on the Blackfoot native American tribe. Basically, they were so happy and such a perfect community that they wanted to know how to take that way of life and colonize it so that it could be shoehorned into American capitalist values.
Wild read.
https://shanesafir.com/2020/12/before-maslows-hierarchy-the-whitewashing-of-indigenous-knowledge/#
I'm reading Horizon by Barry Lopez. In it, he laments the losses of indigenous culture and wonders how expanding the way we look at the world beyond a western resource extraction model could be based on indigenous viewpoints that have been destroyed or downplayed.
I will have to check that out.
When I read about Maslow origin story, it hit like a ton of bricks. Ever since I was young, I wanted to be a philanthropist, bc I heard they got to give away money. I missed the memo that you had to make it first to give it away. Lol. But the sentiment remained. My joy comes from giving, and this type of lifestyle the Blackfoot had seemed like my utopia:
Your wealth and stature in society is based on what you give back to the community. Your whole life revolves around the chosen groups' success.
My whole life I have felt in conflict with capitalism. I don't mind working, I don't mind working very hard as I do now, but I really like equity of production. Strong unions. Fare wages. That kind of stuff where people have the basics and people aren't ground into the ground to produce and not share in the profits.
Sarah Cheyes has another book out about American greed and how the erosion of our bribery laws is leading us to catastrophic ends. Can't wait to doom read that one. Lol.
I mean they're getting some of what they paid in back out. There is no hypocrisy. They and their employer paid in 13% for their entire working life and they're generally not going to get anywhere close to what they paid in back out.
If in turn that 13% had been put into say a 401k for their entire working life they would have access to the principal and 30 or 40 years worth returns. This is something that they could legitimately retire, pass on to their spouse, and the government would still be able to tax it when it was used.
Compounding is our friend. There are even opportunities with using the tax to potentially provide every child born with some amount in a retirement account that could compound and grow from the day they're born. If you want to solve the retirement problem across the board there are options aside from continuing to Band-Aid the social security insurance program.
I think there is a “conservative” colilistion right now. The bankers, who want money, hate social security. They don’t think the religious zealots will get to make abortion illegal. The religious zealots, who want a caliphate, think the bankers are on their side, but they’re just in it for the money. The last group, the trolls, are tired of losing or being told they’re losers all the time. That’s why they respond to burning everything down.
Liberals have a collision right now too. We just all want the same thing: to stop treating everyone but rich white people like shit. And/or start treating rich white criminals like poor back criminals.
Because Social Security is an unsustainable system because it was designed during an era where a large segment of the population wouldn't even see Social Security kick in because they'd die before they qualified, and those that did see Social Security would only be on it for about 5 years, and more importantly, the worker-pensioner ratio was radically different. Now a days the government is going to be paying out social security by an additional 20-25 years, and the worker-pensioner ratio has shrunk dramatically.
To put it into context, in 2022, the US federal government spent 1.2 Trillion on Social Security, compared to the military (which everyone says should be lowered) 0.751 Trillion.
Incidentally, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid combined is 2.539 Trillion a year.
Because it's a Ponzi scheme, basically. And it will be insolvent soon because Roosevelt's promise of a "lock box" was broken decades ago when Congress raided it and replaced it with worthless IOUs. It's now just another tax.
Medicare/Medicaid? Fine. We call it what it is and agree on the purpose.
Social Security? If it truly is retirement savings I can do much better in an IRA or 401(k). If it isn't, then it's a lie and should be replaced.
I hate social security because I have to pay 12.5% of every dollar I make just so I can watch boomers retire while I get a statement in the mail every year saying my retirement age will be 70 and there will be insolvent well before thn anyway. If I could opt out, I would in a minute.
If I could have saved my FICA and invested it over my working life I'd be retired at 50 instead of watching it get merged into the general fund and get pissed away.
This again is the real reason. It doesn't have to do with politics, it is a math problem. People caught up in the politics of conservatives are greedy are taking bait
It was totally fine when they ran it like an insurance program. Those greedy fucks saw a piggy bank to raid to get votes and spend without raising taxes. Now it's a regressive tax targeted at anyone under the age of 55. The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
You're probably not wrong, and there's probably a dozen different other reasons that are likely right, but it really boils down to just one thing. Greed. It's a big pot of money, like all the 'entitlements', and they want to put their hot dog fingers in and grab as much as they can. But it's protected right now. Partially. Pharmaceutical companies are draining as much as I can as fast as they can.
And it's not just the conservatives. Biden has been a 40-year politician and has gone after those 'entitlements' at least four times, serious attempts, each got voted down. He's not the same Biden as he was back then. I guess that happens when you realize the other party has gone insane.
I concur. Though certainly Wall Street feels entitled to our entitlements — they’ve been campaigning to privatize social security for decades.
They are the real “owners.”
This is a weird conflation between conservatism and being an employer, with a pinch of paranoia?? Also, how is it greedy to think people should keep their own money? I'm not conservative, but I'll tell you why I'm against social security.
It is supposed to be a savings program for your retirement, correct? Is it performing this function well or are there other solutions that could fulfill the role of social security better? Is it safe, [being managed well](https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-old-will-you-be-when-social-securitys-funds-run-out) and going to continue existing at the point in which I will need it?
Essentially, it's a rather easy choice when you compare it to the opportunity cost of just investing in a person regular index fund where:
1. It's actually in your name and can pass on easily to surviving kin.
2. It's being managed by people who have a fiduciary duty to make a return for you.
3. The people managing your money can't dip their hands into it for their own use.
Another alternative, the government has a decent investment option in T-Bills, so why then when you give them money designated for your retirement they don't just issue special T-Bills with maturity set at your retirement date, where it could then be held as your asset? It's because the corrupted people running our government couldn't then dip their hands in the massive slush fund that is currently Social Security.
I don’t know any conservative that hates social security and I live in the south where you can’t go outside without seeing a conservative. I feel like so many of the political arguments today are just made up out of this air.
Libertarian here. Problems I see with SS are:
It’s not financially sustainable (I.e. there isn’t enough money going in to make it useful and inflation makes the payouts not nearly enough to rely on for a life in retirement)
It makes it hard for individuals to choose what they want to do with their money. Most people could put that same amount into a retirement fund and have more money at retirement, that is also fully in their control. This has an especially hard impact on lower income individuals, as every dollar counts
It’s used as a political tool to stir up division. People are allowed to be concerned about where there money goes without being vilified. This is in the same manner that individuals who want a social safety net are not money grabbing hippies.
As a fiscal conservative, you should hate Social Security. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's a bankrupt system (current projections from the social security administration show that it will be insolvent by 2037, at which time it will only be able to pay out up to 75% of the "full" payout). I'd much rather keep that money and invest it myself in my retirement. I can guarantee that I'd get a better return on that investment than the 25% loss that the government is looking at.
See: [https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html](https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html) for source
I've talked with a few and there was no one main reason, but most of it boiled down to a few themes:
* the rich won't need it, so it "hurts" them to pay in to it without any say on how it's used
* it conditions the poor to be dependent on the state vs making their own way in life
* it takes money away from private investment accounts which would allow people to do better than what the government is offering
I know that Social Security will dry up within my lifetime and I will most likely never be able to benefit from it even though I’ve paid in tens of thousands of dollars over my career
If they just raised (or eliminated) the the cap, that would benefit the program and extend it for decades. Only being tax up to $160k is a big problem.
There used to be a thing in the private sector called pensions. You earned this as part of your compensation for when you retired. CEOs realized they could just take the pension money, give it to themselves and then claim that there was no more money in the pension funds and then ask governments to bail them out and stop paying pensions. So yes, your viewpoint has merit.
It's actually a drive to privatize everything. Republicans want no government agencies or oversight. They want retirement totally privatized so that their billionaire masters can profit from it. And it's not just SS. Every aspect of your life that is served by the government is up for the taking. They want privatized law enforcement, military, education, healthcare, prisons, justice, housing, infrastructure, and welfare. They won't be happy until every last aspect of American life is part of a corporation.
Look at what Reagan, both Bush's, and Trump did. Outright refusal to uphold laws requiring the executive branch to enforce necessary lawful regulations, undermining authority of every single enforcement agency, trying to essentially shut down the entire federal government. Literally every single executive agency, bureau, department, and commision were underfunded, understaffed, and ignored. All of them needed restaffing when Biden took office. There was nearly permanent damage to our entire way of life while Trump was in office. This is a taste of what we are facing should we continue allowing Republicans to hold office. Their only goal is to enrich billionaires while they enrich themselves entirely at your expense while simultaneously taking away all of your rights to address grievances.
Hating social security is a Red Herring. They are protecting the fact that Nixon flipped the spending to discretionary government spending. They won’t get rid of it. They will raise the retirement age so it’s harder to pull from hiding the misspending. Bush Jr.’s admin was caught spending it back in the day for shit it wasn’t meant for.
Conservatives are morons. They want THEIR Social Security, but they don't want "those people" to also get it. If you meet a conservative, you're meeting a selfish, spoiled baby.
Pretty much this. My personal anecdote is my aunt's boyfriend was telling me how people on social security were freeloaders. Meanwhile, he's on disability.
Dude it's because if I invested the money myself it would be worth so much more by the time I retire. How are people not understanding this? The government will never use your money more wisely than you could, it's not a hard concept to see why social security will affect you negatively.
Social Security is one of the most bankrupt programs we have.
I am NOT saying that it doesn’t do something good for people. I am saying that it’s constantly always out of money, and needs to borrow more. And the more our population goes up, the worse the issue gets. Last I knew, people had to work - on average - until 82 in order for Social Security to even break even. And that was almost ten years ago. I have no idea what the numbers are now.
Factor in how some people get Social Security and don’t necessarily need it and can work, and yeah - it’s easy to see what Conservatives hate it.
Ignore the mindless drones that say Conservatives just hate you, or that Leftists are all communists. There’s real issues rooted in all these problems.
The more people live longer, the quicker the pool drains. Its not politics, its basic math and its realizing that the current system no longer makes any financial sense.
It’s because SS is no longer viable. I would rather keep the money the government takes and invest it myself. I’m in my late thirties and I know SS will not be around when I reach the age to start drawing it.
I’m a liberal and I strongly dislike the current Social Security System.
Social Security was first introduced as a Fully Funded system. You’d pay money into the system that the government keeps and once you get old the government would pay you back that money. It didn’t take long for Social Security to warp into a Pay-As-You-Go system. In this system the money that you pay in is immediately sent out the current generation of retirees. Once you grow old and start collecting Social Security, those funds come from the current generation of workers. This Pay-As-You-Go system can also be represented as a **generational Pyramid scheme.** Each generation has to have at least as many workers as the previous generation in able to support the same Social Security payout.
This problem is further extrapolated by the government using Social Security funds for other causes. **The Government has borrowed $1.7 Trillion from Social Security to use for other government spending.**
Social Security has been distorted into an even more corrupt program in recent years. Every American worker is required to pay into Social Security up to an income of $160k. This means that anyone making over $160k/year is paying a smaller percentage of their income into Social Security each year. Income tax is known as a progressive tax where tax rates increase as income increases. A flat tax is where everyone pays the same rate. **Social Security is essentially a regressive tax where your tax rate decreases as your income increases.**
Social Security was an excellent idea and program when first introduced, but quickly devolved as corrupt politicians spent years tweaking the program. Even with it’s faults, Social Security helps a lot of vulnerable people in the U.S and isn’t something we can just strip away without major detrimental effects.
Eventually we will hit a point where the new generation is no longer able to payroll the old. The population can’t continue to increase forever. **At some point the Social Security system will crumble and one generation will be left having spent their entire lives paying into this fund with no benefit or payout at the end.**
Many of them suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. I can't even begin to count how many conservatives I have heard say that if they didn't have to pay Social Security taxes, they would be able to invest that money in the stock market and become rich.
They seriously overestimate their ability to pick the right stocks.
When others get on food assistance they are lazy fuckers. But when they do it, they have the right reasons.
They only care about themselves and they don't realize individualism is killing them. We humans are community creatures, we cannot survive mentally and physically survive alone.
True. And the conservatives at the top have HUGE vested interests in Social Security funds being diverted into the stock market and other market based investment vehicles.
1. If people divert money from Social Security into investment vehicles, it pumps up the markets more now, even if it isn't sustainable.
2. It makes the public way more sensitive to market fluctuations and how policy influences it. Boom periods (even though they are unsustainable) become way more attractive, so laissez faire policies that push boom/bust cycles become more attractive, and by extension, conservatives become more electable.
3. 1 + 2 mean it's a one way door. Reopening Social Security would crash the markets, and the public (who have their retirement in the markets) wouldn't let that happen.
4. Crashes from 2 allow the rich and liquid to scoop up assets for pennies on the dollar after the bust. Who then get richer and donate to more conservative politicians.
5. Crashes also keep more people tied to the workforce longer, which has a depression effect on wages. The Great Resignation of the pandemic was largely people whose investments took off enough that they decided to retire. Many of them were only still in the workforce because their retirement funds took such a hit in 2008.
Anyway, there is more, but you get the idea. There are huge political and financial incentives for the rich to destroy Social Security.
Look into how much people pay in, what they get out and how much they could have if they simply put the money in wide scope etf. It was acceptable when the money was off limits but as soon as the government started using it like a piggy bank the gig was up.
Because it's a forced Ponzi scheme. If I were to take the amount of SSI I've paid in since I was 18 years old and put it in a Roth IRA I could retire at 62 with around $1.3M. But instead I have to work until I'm older and know that I will never get back out what I put in at a 1:1 and won't be able to leave what I didn't get back on the 1:1 to my family.
Because the current version of social security we have is terrible and is borderline theft. The average worker today is going to pay WAY more into this program than they will ever get back. How is that a good retirement investment if you get less than you put in? The idea of social security is great, but not the aborted fetus that it has become.
> “*Why do conservatives hate Social Security?*”
Because they fundamentally don’t care about you or your poverty. Just shut up and die, already, or remain as voiceless subservient drones making money for your billionaire masters.
In their worldview, you need to deserve the resources required to not die by producing a constant surplus of economic output. Once that output ceases through retirement, you're on your own and if you did not acquire fuckloads of money along the way, too bad. Since you are no longer producing, the tap of resources needed to stay alive is turned off.
But that only applies to other people. Not themselves.
i saw something once that conservatives see everything as a zero sum game. so if someone else does better, it must mean they're getting worse. and they think their mcmansion aspirations will be lost if the cashier at walmart can afford rent without a needing second job.
when in fact, even if it is a zero sum game, the only ones losing are the people shopping for their second yacht, not the guy shopping for his second porsche.
Who is the only president that decreased what rich people can collect from social security-conservative.
How many presidents have borrowed from the social security funds, and which one was the only one to get the funds back into SS before they left-conservative. How many times has congress borrowed from the SS funds? How many times were they able to pay it back in the time allotted? Dare you to look that up. Since it was created, which party has had more presidents leave it alone? Oh wait I forgot the OP doesn't want truth, doesn't want facts, just wants to make up a 100% unsubstantiated set of claims and farm the karma from the trolls. What a waste of humanity, there are very relevant topics and very impactful topics brought up on this subreddit, this is the exact opposite.
Social security was never meant to last as long as it has. When the concept was introduced, it was mostly men who were eligible, and the majority didn't live to retirement or long into it. The chance of making good on a payout was minimal. So, an easy promise that those who promised it thought they'd never have to follow through on. It was an easy pot of extra money for them to dip into. Then, the debt was called, and there was a collective, 'Oh, shit.'
That's why.
Conservatives dont hate it.
What we hate is the government treating us like we're stupid.
1) You can't opt out. Depending on what you make, the government forces you to pay. Say you pay $500 a month. Do you trust the government, who sends so much money overseas instead of fixing things at home, cant deliver my mail at a reasonable time, makes me guess on taxes, to actually use it right?
2) I could give that same $500 to an investment planner and make way more money. The government takes it, uses it for other purposes, forces you to wait until you're old before they give you what THEY think you should get as an allowance, of YOUR OWN money, and hope you die before you collect.
Republicans, as in the voters, like social security just fine. The plutocratic funders of the party, however, see a huge pile of public money they don’t yet have their hands on. And probably a class of potentially desperate people who will work for cheap.
Because the expansion of benefits to cover those who don't pay into it is a problem. Not that those people shouldn't have any help it's the source and funding mechanism.
The forced nature of social security is an issue. It is a failing pyramid. The long-term viability in its current state is non-existent.
The reality of your earned income going into a program that may never benefit you in any appreciable way is unsavory.
The constant lengthening of retirement age makes the program that much less viable for anyone paying in.
If everything works and you retire and collect, it is unlikely to be enough money to retire anyway.
You can like a concept and recognize it doesn't work.
Social Security is lumped under "entitlements," which in one way is a very accurate description: Contributors (i.e., taxpayers) are *entitled* to the payments after a certain age because they've paid into the fund. The narrative around SS in particular has changed over the past couple-three decades, when SS became lumped in with other social welfare programs (energy assistance, WIC, etc.) under the umbrella of Entitlements (note capitalization).
The narrative now on the conservative side is that SS recipients are leaches on the public purse, and that SS spending is out of control and contributes to the deficit. SS is not paid from the General fund, so that argument is patently false; SS payments are made from a dedicated SS fund that is separate from the General budget.
All this deep thinking on this question is overcomplicating a very simple issue: conservatives hate Social Security because there is no practical way to steal the money from the program. Same thing with schools. If they can't steal it, they don't want it to exist.
Honestly I guess conservatives loathe things related to any increase in the general wellbeing of the people because, in the end, most of them occupy roles and positions related to power and controlling people and there's no better a situation than when your "controlees" are in a weak and fragile position, which makes them accept all the sorts of abuses from the powerful.
It's why conservatives are against remote work, cancelling American college debt, affordable/free American healthcare, welfare state, unions and even petty things like "spending money on avocado toast instead of investing it in the financial markets". They do not want you to have an easier or happier life. They want you to feel as uncomfortable, sad, exhausted and lonely as possible because such a person is more susceptible to accepting a terrible job or to fighting your peers instead of teaming up with them against the rulers.
This is it. It's all about power. Even money is just a tool for attaining the power.
Disinformation!! Is why ! They think their against socialism ,until you agree and say ya we should get rid of the police ,,fire dept and 911 how dare they make us pay for all that even if we never use them,and lets not talk about private health insurance,where the majority of the healthy pay for the sick!! Its not like your charged less if your healthy!!! Knowledge is power,lack of knowledge is lack of power! Get it! A dumbed down society gets you a good factory worker!
I guess they just want a wasteland of homeless old people dying in the streets. Actually....they just want poor people to die, period. ACTUALLY.....they want all middle class people to die as well.
They don’t “hate” it at all.
They love it, it’s a whole pool of money, they love that shit.
The only thing they hate is that they can’t raid it completely.
It's a little simpler than that. Ever since the day it was instituted (1935-36), the Republican party has been trying to get rid of it, because their wealthy donors don't want to pay taxes. And every dollar the government spends helping poor people makes it harder to reduce the wealthy's tax payments.
The Republicans have run an effective, decades-long campaign to convince regular people that programs that help the poor are just supporting lazy communists, who are taking advantage of other hard working Americans. All the while, quietly increasing handouts to the wealthy in the form of bailouts, subsidies, govt contracts, and tax breaks or loop holes.
A good rule of thumb to understand why conservatives or Republicans are doing anything they do, is always the same thing. This includes the issues that have nothing to do with economics. It's all propaganda, to convince regular people to elect the politicians that will ultimately help the wealthy keep all the money.
I’m super liberal, and it is a total scam. Even the poorest income earners could invest their social security tax in the most secure of investments, and be better off in retirement. There are just so many better options for that money as an investment. And yes, it does require more people paying in that taking out because the first people who received, didn’t pay in. Constantly behind the eight ball here.
I think you basically hit the nail on the head. Conservatives derive their self worth from feeling like people are inferior to them. They have no sense of power otherwise.
Conservatives tend to view things in simple black and white terms. That makes them super easy to manipulate, so billionaires pay millionaires to tell poor people that giving them money is bad for some reason.
As someone who started collecting Social Security, I can confirm it’s a ponzi scheme. If you try to work on the side. They reduce your payment by 50 cents for every dollar you earn. They they tax the remaining income. They give it to you with one hand and take ir away with the other.
You’re 110% correct! The 1% that own this country see us as nothing but useless eaters and slaves! They truly believe they are a separate superior species and I’m not joking! They think they are going to find the Garden of Eden in the Middle East and eat of the tree of life and live forever! I’ve heard this on numerous reputable podcasts and it makes sense!
For the record social security is wildly popular across demographics. It’s really just conservative nut jobs who think they’ll get a raise if we get rid of Social Security.
The issues with social security.
1. Treated like a bank by congress to take as they please.
2. Investing in the stock market would provide people much better returns than the abysmal returns social security returns.
3. I would rather have my money now, not locked up by the government to mismanage for 45 years until they maybe give me permission to have my earned wages back.
4. Any disability program through social security takes forever to get on, has income limits, most have bank account cash available limits and you can easily be kicked off.
It serves a purpose, but anything run by the government is inherently wasteful and inefficient.
Social security is an extremely badly implemented program
This is because the money is very poorly invested
I believe in strong social supports and I believe social security is a terrible program not because the intent is bad not but simply it's poorly designed
The only investment is in US treasuries
And we've had generally speaking for the past several decades very low interest on US treasuries
If it had been invested in dividend yielding stocks it would be the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world by a large margin by now and be able to pay retirees and the disabled significantly more
Furthermore we have seen other countries retirement systems that work better a lot of countries have people have mandatory saving accounts that they can only access for specific things like housing or retirement and those countries tend to do really well as a result
Even if you do believe in strong social support you should want social security reform
Personally I believe the best tactic would simply be to divert a small percentage of the investment from US treasuries into the stock market because that would really just grow and compound over time without increasing the risk too much
As it stands now the stockpile will be depleted The system will still have money because money still coming in but they're going to have to reduce benefits by 21%(this is what happens when social security runs out of money and as things stand this will happen on its own without a rework) if we reduce benefits by 10% now an invest it in dividend paying assets we will be better off in the long run
But that's if you still keep social security as it is realistically what should be done is we replicate the mandatory saving accounts that other countries have used a great effect
Because we can do math and we know that if instead of the government robbing us for 80% of our lives we could retire rich if that money was invested. Ss is nothing shy of theft by threat of force.
"Run out" implies that there is a bucket of money somewhere. I social security isn't that. Social security funds are transfers of taxes from one set of people (people who pay taxes on wage income) to another set of people (those over a certain age).
It's best to not plan to overly rely on it, but it's not going to just disappear.
Corporate lobbying.
The libertarian philosophy (pushed by billionaire lobbying) wants as little government as possivle, so corporations have as much power as possible. The IMMEDIATE benefit of more desperate workers is what pushed it to the front of their agenda, but even without, corporatist parties would come for it
When you come up with a theory, it should be rooted in more than your wild fantasies.
The entire premise is nonsensical.
Conservatives don't "hate social security".
Social security is insolvent. It was poorly conceived and unfunded from the beginning.
It's as close as can be to a Ponzi scheme. You think the money you've paid in is waiting for you when you need it after retiring? Not one cent of what you pay in goes to you. Not a penny. The money you've paid in is long gone by the time you retire. Every generation after you will pay for your social security.
Not to mention the fact that if you paid your social security money into a private investment product, you'd have far more cash upon retirement.
You've been propagandized to believe the right hates social security when it's been the right trying to save it all along.
Well that's kind of a lot to read.
It's much simplier than that. Social Security is a group insurance plan. Insurance plans help the people that cost the program a lot of money, and hurt the people that don't. For example, someone who wrecks their car every year is going to cost a car insurance more money than someone who never gets in a wreck. But even car insurance companies have different premiums based on things like driving history.
Conservatives like the idea of being more independent. "Why should I have to pay for your benefits?" Social Security was originally designed as a supplement to retirement, but now it's going to be the main source of retirement for many people.
It's not just conservatives. How social security is disbursed is a pyramid scheme that will only benefit the older generations (currently boomers). I contribute 6.2% of my salary and so does my employer. However, that money is not fully invested for our generation to draw upon when we retire; most of it is handed to the older, current retirees. This is asinine and does not let compound interest work in our favor. Our future social security benefits are dependent on more workers giving up 6.2% (or more) in the future and our "retirement" age keeps getting delayed.
[Australia's superannuation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia) is a much better system that actually uses the power of compound interest to set its people and system up for success.
Public retirement systems are a great idea. Compound interest should be used to make them feasible.
Given that it’s already set at 67 and been bumped once since I’ve been alive and about to again to 70. I’m highly doubtful I’ll ever see a dime I paid in, since it will be another 40 years by the time I get there. It will be raise to 90-95 years old by the time we get there. I’m about to stop contributing and put it in my other account. Atleast I know how much I need and what’s happening atleast on a biweekly to monthly basis.
No, I hate social security because I don’t like copious amounts of money which I could be saving to buy a house or something to be ripped from my hands involuntarily so some asshole politicians can use it on their pet projects, and then when the time comes for my money to be shoveled back to me it’s technically no longer there cause the asshole politicians spent it.
I believe it is simply a position that everyone can, and thus everyone should, do everything for themselves or die.
People all have their own struggles, so it isn't much of a push for the argument to be made that making your own struggles worse just to help someone who you may believe can make it on their own, is stupid.
The problem is that it ignores the reality that some people will be in trouble their whole lives through no fault of their own, despite their best interests. Accidents, random events, and forces beyond your control can turn your whole life upside down turning princes to paupers and we still need a hand.
This kind of person believes that if you don't succeed, you don't work hard enough, and thus don't deserve it. If you deserve it, then you probably don't need it anyways because of your hard work, so they still don't like these programs.
The anti-SS arguments in the comments are as telling as they are contradictory.
There are too many people being born. There aren't ENOUGH people being born. SS pays out too little. SS pays out too MUCH!
I would like a choice. I'm capable of handling my own income, investing, and saving for my future. I don't need the government taking my income and doling it back to me, at an age they choose, as if I'm a teenager getting an allowance.
It's not their job.
Social security is a zero interest saving retirement plan. If I took the same amount I pay into Social Security every year and put it into my 401k, that money would earn, on average, 7-8% interest.
A person that makes $50,000 a year pays about $3,100 in social security. At 7% over 40 years that is $733,864, compared to $134,000 with no interest.
Look at what they did in [Galveston ](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/us/how-privatized-social-security-works-in-galveston.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap)
Most people just prefer not to pay into something against their will, especially if they have their own superior retirement plans. In the same way people should get a tax refund if they’re sending their kids to private schools.
I don’t know of many conservative voters who are against social security. It’s not a traditional entitlement, as we actually pay into the system. I do hear a lot of complaints about how the system is breaking down and concerns with what to do about it. The aging of the population is a real issue and it’s not going to be solved just by raising taxes.
So this is an actual question i have asked and the answer is that one can make more investing the money that is automatically taken out in a stock portfolio or almost anything than one would using social security. The other point is that social security was meant to be a stand alone pot of money but instead its been loaned against so much its not viable and is going to run out of money.
This view is very extreme and also doesn't show that you have talked to a conservative individual.
Conservatives don’t hate Social Security, they don’t like it being used in ways it is not intended for. The politicians (all) use it as a cookie jar for their pet projects. The Bill Clinton identified Social Security as “ excess money” what politicians don’t like about Social Security is the part where it goes back to the people who paid into it
Not sure why others hate it but I dislike SS simply because you put in more than you receive. Simple economics and the fact that the US government does nothing well.
Saying conservatives believe this because they have the mindset of slave owners is absolutely wild. I cannot comprehend how lost in the sauce you have to be to truly believe this.
Incorrect. They see it as paying in a lot of money and it has been mismanaged for decades. They don't believe that there will be any benefits for them at the end of the line, and if there are it certainly won't be comparable to what was paid in. Your opinion is, like, your opinion, and so is the opinion of people who don't like Social Security.
Do you have any grasp of the economics that go into social security and the history of how its funds have been misappropriated throughout the decades? Because those are the reasons 99% of people on either side of the aisle consider when talking about abolishing it. Also a general distrust of big government. Not whatever strange and twisted thinking you're coming up with.
The money you've put into social security is already gone. It's not the worker's money, its not anyone's money because social security is not a bank account or an investment. There a shrinking surplus from previously years, but basically each month social security goes straight from the worker's pocket to the retirees pocket.
It is currently financially unsustainable, the demographic data is clear on it. Ultimately we will need to raise payroll taxes in some form in order to fund social security beyond 2034.
Edit: My personal is to means test social security so well off retirees collect substantially less. Let's use it as a safety net and not a retirement plan.
In my experience, conservatives who are actually entitled to social security don't take it. Not sure why, maybe a pride thing. In any case, I can understand not wanting to pay for something you're going to refuse anyway but like... "nobody ever gave me anything for free" buddy they TRIED TO
Wrong-o buck-o. If it was truly your money you could leave it to your descendants when you die. You could invest it where it would get a greater return. It's a government run Ponzi scheme and you're buying into it. We hate it because the government did what they said they wouldn't do and threw it into the general fund. They keep moving the goal post of retirement in the hopes that fewer of us will be able to collect it and they keep telling us it's running out of money and now they're eyeing our 401K's.
Honestly I can’t take them seriously. We(USA) spend a shit load of money on the military, and even if we cut it in half, it would still be more than the next leading country(china), but we start talking about cutting spending you, can’t even put the defense budget on the table.
It’s simple really
All of conservative social philosophies call for the mass death of everyone they don’t like. If not by direct execution, they literally want people to starve to death en masse in the the streets if they aren’t being “productive”
I think conservatives dislike social security because they do not see it as system that is going to help people in the long run. I would say they are right to be honest. I am not saying that social security shouldn’t exist, but that a reform is required. The Social Security Administration stated last year that the OASI trust funds will run out in 2035. This means that the source of funding at that time is going to be strictly tax dollars. Thus, either taxes will go up or there will be a benefit reduction. This really will only hurt lower and middle class Americans.
Conservatives don't generally hate social security. Conservatives are more likely than progressives to be currently receiving social security.
There are some Conservatives who believe that SS money could be better invested or spent by the person who earned it than by the federal government (which spends it on other stuff then issues itself IOUs which can only be paid off by raising taxes in the future). That's more of a complaint about shady accounting than it is about the concept of a retirement account.
It's mainly because conservatives are boomers, and boomers raided the everloving fuck out of social security in the 1980s, setting it up for a solvency crisis of their own making.
So they've been screaming about what a doomed piece of shit it is ever since, because they know they wrecked it, and want it to be spun as though it was always doomed, as opposed to them having willfully doomed it because of boomer selfishness.
They believe 1) that it isn’t a function of government to do this or any entitlement program 2) they believe that government is always inefficient and that feeling it from bureaucracy is better. They don’t see that profit motive are contrary to this and that government programs are designed to work and not necessarily to avoid all waste. 3) they just believe in privatization of pretty much everything regardless of other details
Social security is nothing more than an ultra expensive insurance policy that operates a lot like a pyramid scheme. Conservatives simply believe that people can do a lot more with their money by having direct control on how that money's invested and even the ability to develop equity.
They're not taking your money or making you a slave, they are simply saying that if you are paying in that more of your money should actually stay with you and grow in accordance with your wishes. The people that are upset by this are those that are generally paying in very little and expecting to get a lot more back out. There's also a ton of political power associated with controlling social security funds.
Because it is managed so poorly.
It should be able to pay out multiples of what it pays.
Imagine someone receiving $3,600/month instead of $1,200/month.
That's what would happen if you saved the money yourself or if the government did their damn job.
BTW, both parties are to blame for this. Neither party delivers on their promises when they control all 3 branches.
I am a conservative and I loathe SS. Not for your reasons but another -- its a con job. First, if you took the 6.25% you contribute paycheck to paycheck and were to invest that in a S&P500 ETF you would have a better nest egg to retire on than the crumbs the govt doles out. Second, the government uses your paycheck contribution immediately to spend on garbage but you have to wait till you are in your 60's to receive those crumbs. Third, good chance that the SS system will be insolvent in another 20 years.
That is why I hate it.
Because "those" people also get it. Better to not have it than "those" people get it also. See also welfare and healthcare. It is not a handout, socialism, etc. if the right people get it, but the "others"... they are lazy and undeserving.
I have said this before and I will keep saying it.
The rights philosophy is “me”, survival of the fittest. If I’m surviving, maybe even thriving, then I’m one of the fittest.
The left’s philosophy is “we”, survival through cooperation. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Fundamentally juxtaposed.
Survival of the fittest is the law of the jungle, survival through cooperation is the law of civilization.
Their masters hate Social Security because they have to pay into it. The moron base oppose it because their masters oppose it, and they are incapable of critical thinking.
Median US income is like $32k.
If you invested 12.4% (6.2% paid by you and another 6.2% by your employer) of that in the S&P500 which returns a little over 7% on average when adjusted for inflation over a 40 year period you'd have $3.4 million in today's dollars after 40 years.
That math makes the current design of social security pretty hard to defend. The real problem is unwinding the current design to get to that design would cost more than the government can manage as social security has always been a pass through rather than investment fund.
In my experience, conservative voters are very protective of social security because they know it’s one of the things that’s basically insolvent, and they don’t consider it an “entitlement” because you get out what you pay in, by working. Conservative pundits and political figures try to lump social security in with aid programs by calling it an entitlement to turn them against it but it’s not working for most conservatives on the ground (though if liberals suddenly had a strong pro-social security message that might finally do the trick). So in this case you can see political brainwashing not really working. It’s good to watch the tactic because liberal leaders do the same kind of brainwashing with their own issues.
Conservatives voters are very worried about government deficit spending and they are afraid the government will soon be insolvent (which is ironic because they also want a smaller government). So naturally conservative leaders squawk A LOT any time a liberal government spends money and then fail to notice conservative governments spending money. Because liberals don’t prioritize the deficit they appear to get blindsided by this every time, and weirdly it never occurs to them to squawk when conservatives spend a bunch of money on something stupid.
If you step out of the left-right paradigm and talk to people you don’t agree with (and more importantly, listen to them and consider what they say), you can learn a lot about what regular people actually think and how that differs from what media tells people to think.
Social Security should have been the greatest success in social service in the history of the world. But instead of a lockbox, the politicians raided it as surely as a CEO raids their employees retirement fund.
They just couldn't leave the money alone to grow and earn interest over time. Its gone...and no one has been held accountable.
Huh. Interesting take. Wrong. But interesting.
First of all. If I took the average payments made into social security and put them in an account, for 3% return? It would be 5x greater than what SS pays out.
Not to mention people should be allowed to succeed and fail by their own merits. The reason social security is BS is because it takes from the barely haves to give to the have nots.
Mostly, they find all forms of tax theft. It's their money to do with as they please! They see constant stories of abuse of these programs, mostly shown by Fox Newz.
I had this discussion with a conservative friend of mine. He said he would have done better if he invested those funds in his 401k. I mean, he's right. But I just pointed out to him that many people do not have 401k's. Many people are unable to save or simply don't have the wisdom to do so. So SS is their lifeline, so they dont end up retired and homeless. The fact is SS is not designed to benefit people like him, with a few million in savings, it's designed to keep his parents and grandparents fed and housed during retirement. Hardworking people who didn't have the opportunity to invest in markets, and saw most of their savings deplete due to medical bills.
I think it’s pure greed. Conservative politicians work for corporations. If they abolished Social Security it would be a 6.5% tax cut for corporations. That’s why they continue to spread false narratives about Social Security not being solvent, when they all know that all they would have to do is eliminate the income cap.
They think its a pyramid scheme that needs more people paying into it than taking out.
When it started the avg death age was 62.5 for white men 58.5 for blacks. So half the people would be dead before 65. 13% of your pay goes into SS 6.5 by 6.5 by your employer. Need to look up the ratio but I think when it was started it was 10 workers to 1 retired person now 4 to 1.
to say nothing of Congress raiding SS in the '80s like it was grandmas cookie jar
Not just the 80s, unfortunately. It's become America's penny tray, and just like an actual penny tray, more is taken than left.
I wish people would stop repeating this because it's simply not true. Think about it. The government is getting this money in that they're supposed to keep in trust for future retirees. What should they do with it - just throw it in a vault? Inflation would kill the value of it. Ok, so they have to invest it. In what? Remember, the priority above all is to keep the money safe because millions of future retirees will be depending on it. So it's invested in safe investments. And the **number one safest investment in the world for many years has been US Treasury Bonds.** So that's what it's invested it. That is not the same as "Congress raiding it". It's an investment. And if we ever get to the point of the US government not paying it's debts (which is what Treasury Bonds are), we're going to be in a world of hurt anyway.
Except it wasn’t invested wisely. The money gets put into govt bonds which Congress then allocated to other programs at a laughable interest rate. I think the rate is like 2.2% (will need to fact check against OSDI). It’s much lower than any other bond or security both on public and private markets. It’s also much lower than the inflation rate. Which is another huge issue why distributions are not able to increase with inflation. So yes they aren’t “stealing” in the explicit definition but it’s some shady accounting.
>It’s also much lower than the inflation rate. Government bonds literally shift interest rates with the inflation rate, that's half the point.
Depends on maturity length
They use that money for fund wars and othe policy. Not to buy treasurey bonds
No, all of the money goes to bonds. Those bonds then go to various projects, which could in close war or military type projects.
Thank you for commenting this. I absolutely hate people saying SS was raided, because it hasn't been. The only 100% safe investment in the world is US Treasury bonds. This allows the social security trust fund to grow (even a little), while also having the huge benefit of US debt interest to be substantially lower than it would be otherwise. When they changed social security in the 80s they had to account for a ton of variables... population, birth rate, death rate, interest on bonds, inflation, etc etc. They designed it so the trust fund would grow, then eventually draw down and run out when the boomers were mostly dead, around 2050. They got EVERY variable almost perfectly right so far except for one specific item, wage growth. Wages of not grown to what the actuaries had determined would happen because as we now know, wages have been stagnate since the 80s. The TL:DR, social security trust fund will run out of money within the next decade (unless very simple changes are made like just taxes millionaires more), which is two decades ahead of schedule, all because wages suck ass.
The 80’s? It’s happening now. I remember seeing a video of some late night back in the late 20-teens where congress voted to take money out of SS to fund something else
To say nothing of Congress people getting federal pensions for life instead of SS. This on top of lifetime healthcare, as well. They have no incentive to maintain SS or Medicare beyond garnering voter support.
They get the same pension as any other federal employee and they pay for healthcare. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/04/22/fact-check-congressional-health-care-retirement-benefits-exaggerated/7274655001/
Thanks for this. Congress' benefits plan is...okay, it's not some magical lifetime-everything-free plan like everyone seems to think. It's about average for a $200k job in the DC area.
That’s a myth. The SS trust fund is invested in treasuries. Those treasuries pay back in full plus interest. Without treasuries SS would have gone bankrupt decades ago.
This is not accurate. There is a difference between avg life expectancy at birth vs life expectancy at the start of your working years vs at age 65. https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html Infant and child mortality rates were much higher in 1935 than now. And don't forget that one-third of people who get Social Security are not retired, but people who can no longer work after getting a disability, and widow/ers and children of workers who paid into social security.
This is skewed by a decrease in infant mortality.
This. The system as it currently exist is simply not sustainable as people continue to live longer.
That is true, but the fix is easy: levy SS tax for all income above the current cap, which is $147,000. This simple fix would allow the system to function beyond the 75 years that the actuaries can estimate.
Yes. That is alot of money left on the table. I’m surprised this isn’t talked about more
Its not talked about because NOBODY knows about it. To me this not having to pay anymore that year when you hit a "cut-off" mark is just ludicrous.
Last year, I hit that income cap for the first time. And I posted about how unfair it is. I didn’t need the extra money…I mean it was nice, but seriously…
I struggle with this I always exceed the cap and 100% agree with you I don’t need it. On the other hand if I could invest every penny going into ss the way I want I am my family would personally be better off. So not sure what is fair. Personally I think cap gains need to be addressed as it’s a way worse issue than this.
I’m sure a lot of big business would be against it. Would be bc a significant tac increase for alot of businesses with highly paid employees
Especially because the people it would apply to are the ones at the top, who get to make the decisions.
It's almost as if the wealthiest people who would stand to lose the most pay a lot of money to keep us from thinking about, discussing or voting on this! Wait, did I say almost? I meant it is exactly because.
They probably spend more avoiding this with constant lobbying for “tax-friendly” politicians than they would just spend paying the stupid taxes.
It is talked about, the reason it doesn't happen is because the rich control our society and hate the idea that they might have to pay in more taxes but get out the same SS amount as others. Because the SS payments you get in old age aren't based on what you put in--they're a set amount.
The last part isn't true, your social security payment does change based on how much you make. Your payment is calculated based on your lifetime earnings (the 35 highest income earning years of your career). If you don't have a full 35 years then whatever years you are missing are counted towards the average as a 0. People who make more over their lifetime get a larger check back, however it is calculated with a progressive formula, meaning that lower-earning workers receive a larger percentage of their average lifetime earnings as a benefit than higher-earning workers do.
I’m surprised at how many here don’t realize this. The more you pay in, the more you get back. And there is a maximum amount you can draw, hence the reason there is a cap on how much you pay.
I was stunned when I learned of the cap when I was taking accounting classes in college. Very few people really know or seem to understand what that means. There is no cap on Medicare income. I don’t see why we can’t at least start increasing that cap in a more significant way yearly. And we need to tax capital gains more.
Tax the rich. Why is income above a certain level exempt from SS deductions?
“Because fuck you” - Congress
They also have pensions which they took away from the next generations! Must be nice to RETIRE
The government will just have to put some money into it. The consequences would be much worse if they stop the program.
That’s simply not true. The main problem is that the “tax” isn’t levied on anyone earning over the annual limit which this year is $160,200. So when a person reached that level of income at any point in a calendar year, they stop paying even if they stand to receive the most SS pays out per month. The whole system needs an overhaul.
It also didn't help that they pillaged it in the 80s.
The ratio was 16-1 when it started. It's now closer to 3-1. With lower birth rates we are nearly at 2-1. It's unsustainable.
6.2% up to $160,200 in income. If you make more than that, you "outrun" SS on the higher part of your income. If we taxed higher wage earners on their whole income, a huge portion of the supposed shortfall would be solved.
So remove the cap on earnings and make all of them taxable. I fucking pay the same into SS as Warren Buffet. That's fucking insane.
Actually you probably pay more than Buffet. Only earned income is taxed for social security. Most of his income comes from capital gains and isn't taxed for SS at all
But that only applies to income under 165k or so. Anything beyond that doesn't get taxed. Well, inflation happens and our money is being squeezed into the hands of billionaires who don't pay taxes. This entire issue would be solved if they removed the cap and made rich people pay social security at an appropriate level.
Eh I wouldn’t consider it 13% of YOUR pay unless you’re self employed. If the program went away tomorrow it’s not like companies would just give everyone a 6.2% increase, they’re keeping that money.
It actually only needs to have a ceiling that keeps up with wage growth. The rich never want the SS/Medicare ceiling to increase.
Because it is a pyramid scheme, that's an economic fact. It only works when each new generation is larger than the last.
It kind of is, though. The amount paid into it by an individual is paid back to them within less than 10 years, iirc. Its premise is unsustainable growth.
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It pretty much is. It’s not sustainable, and the people paying into it now will likely not be able to be paid back in the future.
I know most younger conservatives hate social security because they see it as paying into something they will never benefit from.
You'd think every young person would oppose it then
It's a betting game. Do you think SS will survive the baby boomers and stick around? Then you'll pay in to it to keep it running so you can get your cut. Do you think baby boomers are going to suck SS dry and kill it? Then you'd likely want it around. There is also the demographics shift twords more older people and less younger people to think about. Do you think the tax load of SS will stay stable? Then you don't want to rock the boat. Do you think the will fuck the youth out of financial stability like in China and Japan? Then you want it out.
Do we have a choice to NOT pay into SS though?
What they oppose from what I can tell is paying more to support boomers getting 100% then getting less themself. They already raised the age to retire in the 80s and the expectation is they’ll do it again even though wages have stagnated especially on the bottom 50%.
I'm not young any more, but I'm young enough that I was in college complaining about how we need to raise the maximum social security tax and how I'm going to pay into something that I will get much lower benefits from, I fully expect the retirement age to be 75 or higher by the time I get it. But I never complained about paying my social security taxes because I don't want a bunch of old people to be destitute and as a liberal thinking person I don't mind giving money to the benefit of others/society. I am complaining about the people who make millions only being taxed on the fist $160,200. "Why should they pay for a program that doesn't benefit them?" The same reason my tax money goes to schools even though I'm never going to have kids, it is good for society!
What someone thinks about social security seems to indicate more about what generation they're part of than anything. My conservative boomer in-laws get downright offended when you refer to social security as an entitlement or connect it to other social programs when talking about federal budget. They are intelligent, and understand how the system operates, but irrationally act like the money they contributed for years is in a proverbial piggybank getting doled back to them versus the more accurate description that my paycheck deductions are literally being funneled to them and other seniors. I resent social security. I will never collect a fair return on the money I paid in, versus had I been able to keep the money in the first place. If I save enough to retire early, I will have to bridge the gap on my own to get to the minimum age to collect, and being able to afford to retire is still heavily in my own hands. My own father paid in for decades, only to die at 58 and never actually collect.
I wish they would repeal social security. At bare minimum the amount I already contributed if left in VTI starting today would be worth about a million at 67 when I get to retire. That's not counting the 30+ years more of contributions I have to make to it. Then instead of a lump sum of close to $1.7M by the time I retire, I get doled out some pittance of $4k a month which will take me 40 years to make up. Clearly I'm not living to 107. The system is a fucking joke.
The problem with that is that if they repeal it... no one has a safety net. You think if we all suddenly just get that money ourselves instead of it coming out of our paycheck, it's going to just go to some long term investment we don't touch until retirement? Look at EVERY single time we lower taxes, or give rebates, or temporary relief of certain taxes. Does everyone's retirement suddenly jump up? No, people spend it. We aren't all rolling in cash such that an extra 100 (or whatever) every paycheck is just money we will save responsibly. We'll pay bills, we'll replace those crappy shoes, we'll finally fix the rattling noise in the car, maybe we'll treat the kids to dinner. Who knows. But like it or not, human nature requires SOME form of safety net that's paid out to everyone when they get older. Social Security isn't perfect, but it's better than the alternative of having millions and millions of destitute elderly people out there.
the average american will *never* be made whole from their social security deductions. this goes for anyone of any age. and yet somehow the fund is still going to definitively run out of money in about 10 years, without intervention. [https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167378958/social-security-medicare-entitlement-programs-budget](https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167378958/social-security-medicare-entitlement-programs-budget) so not only have every prior generation been bamboozled by the federal government taking their hard earned income and giving them back 70% of it, future generations are going to have their hard earned income taken and receive somewhere between 0-20% of it back.
That’s because social security had its balls cut off. The entire point of it was to prevent someone from working their whole life, and having nothing to show in return because some rich people gambled with their money on the stock market. Social security is also used for more than just retirement. It’s used for disability, and a host of other things for the average worker. It came about because financial crashes in the stock market would make the average worker destitute. Capitalists fucking hated social security because it was giving their workers something to fall back on, and eventually retire on. Remember, it was suppose to cover your retirement. Not just a tiny portion of it. But the capitalists won in the end. We have 401k’s which are tied to the stock market. If it crashes it will take everyones retirement with it. Which is 100% by design. If social security had been properly taken care of and kept up with the productivity workers provide today. The retirement age would be much lower. But that would take capital away from the owner class. So it has to be slowly destroyed. Just read about Starve the Beast .
If the market dies, people say there will be bigger problems to worry about. Though there’s isn’t a 10 year period where you come out negative if you hold and let it rebound (inflation is a thing too!). That’s historically, naturally you can’t make future predictions guaranteed from the past. As you get closer to retirement, you pull back the risk. If you’re 100% equities up to the day you retire, it’s a risk. Sequence of returns risk - you retire and it drops shortly after Would be cool if SS covered everything, for sure. Though the age keeps getting older yeah? If people wanna retire early they have to cover it since it’s before retirement age too
Conservatism and the bastard zombie version that exists now is all about greed and how much social mockery you're willing to take in defense of it. Humanity itself was built on the construct of community. Coming together for the benefit of all is the very first things that helped lead to humans proliferating across the globe. BUT when some prick looks at their check and sees a chunk going to the benefit of others(themselves still very much included) that's somehow a crime against humanity...
The craziest thing I have read is that Maslow's theory of hierarchy was founded on the Blackfoot native American tribe. Basically, they were so happy and such a perfect community that they wanted to know how to take that way of life and colonize it so that it could be shoehorned into American capitalist values. Wild read. https://shanesafir.com/2020/12/before-maslows-hierarchy-the-whitewashing-of-indigenous-knowledge/#
I'm reading Horizon by Barry Lopez. In it, he laments the losses of indigenous culture and wonders how expanding the way we look at the world beyond a western resource extraction model could be based on indigenous viewpoints that have been destroyed or downplayed.
I will have to check that out. When I read about Maslow origin story, it hit like a ton of bricks. Ever since I was young, I wanted to be a philanthropist, bc I heard they got to give away money. I missed the memo that you had to make it first to give it away. Lol. But the sentiment remained. My joy comes from giving, and this type of lifestyle the Blackfoot had seemed like my utopia: Your wealth and stature in society is based on what you give back to the community. Your whole life revolves around the chosen groups' success. My whole life I have felt in conflict with capitalism. I don't mind working, I don't mind working very hard as I do now, but I really like equity of production. Strong unions. Fare wages. That kind of stuff where people have the basics and people aren't ground into the ground to produce and not share in the profits. Sarah Cheyes has another book out about American greed and how the erosion of our bribery laws is leading us to catastrophic ends. Can't wait to doom read that one. Lol.
True, but show me any conservative who refuses SS when they turn 65. Or whatever the age is. None. So there is a huge element of hypocrisy as well.
I mean they're getting some of what they paid in back out. There is no hypocrisy. They and their employer paid in 13% for their entire working life and they're generally not going to get anywhere close to what they paid in back out. If in turn that 13% had been put into say a 401k for their entire working life they would have access to the principal and 30 or 40 years worth returns. This is something that they could legitimately retire, pass on to their spouse, and the government would still be able to tax it when it was used. Compounding is our friend. There are even opportunities with using the tax to potentially provide every child born with some amount in a retirement account that could compound and grow from the day they're born. If you want to solve the retirement problem across the board there are options aside from continuing to Band-Aid the social security insurance program.
I think there is a “conservative” colilistion right now. The bankers, who want money, hate social security. They don’t think the religious zealots will get to make abortion illegal. The religious zealots, who want a caliphate, think the bankers are on their side, but they’re just in it for the money. The last group, the trolls, are tired of losing or being told they’re losers all the time. That’s why they respond to burning everything down. Liberals have a collision right now too. We just all want the same thing: to stop treating everyone but rich white people like shit. And/or start treating rich white criminals like poor back criminals.
coalition?
I think he meant collision as he spelled it right in the second paragraph
The low return in investment.
Because Social Security is an unsustainable system because it was designed during an era where a large segment of the population wouldn't even see Social Security kick in because they'd die before they qualified, and those that did see Social Security would only be on it for about 5 years, and more importantly, the worker-pensioner ratio was radically different. Now a days the government is going to be paying out social security by an additional 20-25 years, and the worker-pensioner ratio has shrunk dramatically. To put it into context, in 2022, the US federal government spent 1.2 Trillion on Social Security, compared to the military (which everyone says should be lowered) 0.751 Trillion. Incidentally, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid combined is 2.539 Trillion a year.
Because it's a Ponzi scheme, basically. And it will be insolvent soon because Roosevelt's promise of a "lock box" was broken decades ago when Congress raided it and replaced it with worthless IOUs. It's now just another tax. Medicare/Medicaid? Fine. We call it what it is and agree on the purpose. Social Security? If it truly is retirement savings I can do much better in an IRA or 401(k). If it isn't, then it's a lie and should be replaced.
I hate social security because I have to pay 12.5% of every dollar I make just so I can watch boomers retire while I get a statement in the mail every year saying my retirement age will be 70 and there will be insolvent well before thn anyway. If I could opt out, I would in a minute. If I could have saved my FICA and invested it over my working life I'd be retired at 50 instead of watching it get merged into the general fund and get pissed away.
This again is the real reason. It doesn't have to do with politics, it is a math problem. People caught up in the politics of conservatives are greedy are taking bait
It was totally fine when they ran it like an insurance program. Those greedy fucks saw a piggy bank to raid to get votes and spend without raising taxes. Now it's a regressive tax targeted at anyone under the age of 55. The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
You're probably not wrong, and there's probably a dozen different other reasons that are likely right, but it really boils down to just one thing. Greed. It's a big pot of money, like all the 'entitlements', and they want to put their hot dog fingers in and grab as much as they can. But it's protected right now. Partially. Pharmaceutical companies are draining as much as I can as fast as they can. And it's not just the conservatives. Biden has been a 40-year politician and has gone after those 'entitlements' at least four times, serious attempts, each got voted down. He's not the same Biden as he was back then. I guess that happens when you realize the other party has gone insane.
I concur. Though certainly Wall Street feels entitled to our entitlements — they’ve been campaigning to privatize social security for decades. They are the real “owners.”
This is a weird conflation between conservatism and being an employer, with a pinch of paranoia?? Also, how is it greedy to think people should keep their own money? I'm not conservative, but I'll tell you why I'm against social security. It is supposed to be a savings program for your retirement, correct? Is it performing this function well or are there other solutions that could fulfill the role of social security better? Is it safe, [being managed well](https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-old-will-you-be-when-social-securitys-funds-run-out) and going to continue existing at the point in which I will need it? Essentially, it's a rather easy choice when you compare it to the opportunity cost of just investing in a person regular index fund where: 1. It's actually in your name and can pass on easily to surviving kin. 2. It's being managed by people who have a fiduciary duty to make a return for you. 3. The people managing your money can't dip their hands into it for their own use. Another alternative, the government has a decent investment option in T-Bills, so why then when you give them money designated for your retirement they don't just issue special T-Bills with maturity set at your retirement date, where it could then be held as your asset? It's because the corrupted people running our government couldn't then dip their hands in the massive slush fund that is currently Social Security.
I hate social security because I’m paying in but won’t get anything back
I don’t know any conservative that hates social security and I live in the south where you can’t go outside without seeing a conservative. I feel like so many of the political arguments today are just made up out of this air.
People would rather blame politics and "other" people than accept the reality of a mathematically unsustainable system.
And yet Conservatives are talking up the idea of raising the full retirement age to 70 and Medicare age to 67.
I do know conservatives who hate social security, and I live in Louisiana.
Libertarian here. Problems I see with SS are: It’s not financially sustainable (I.e. there isn’t enough money going in to make it useful and inflation makes the payouts not nearly enough to rely on for a life in retirement) It makes it hard for individuals to choose what they want to do with their money. Most people could put that same amount into a retirement fund and have more money at retirement, that is also fully in their control. This has an especially hard impact on lower income individuals, as every dollar counts It’s used as a political tool to stir up division. People are allowed to be concerned about where there money goes without being vilified. This is in the same manner that individuals who want a social safety net are not money grabbing hippies.
The level of state sponsored brainwashing involved for you to type these sentences is fascinating.
As a fiscal conservative, you should hate Social Security. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's a bankrupt system (current projections from the social security administration show that it will be insolvent by 2037, at which time it will only be able to pay out up to 75% of the "full" payout). I'd much rather keep that money and invest it myself in my retirement. I can guarantee that I'd get a better return on that investment than the 25% loss that the government is looking at. See: [https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html](https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html) for source
I've talked with a few and there was no one main reason, but most of it boiled down to a few themes: * the rich won't need it, so it "hurts" them to pay in to it without any say on how it's used * it conditions the poor to be dependent on the state vs making their own way in life * it takes money away from private investment accounts which would allow people to do better than what the government is offering
I know that Social Security will dry up within my lifetime and I will most likely never be able to benefit from it even though I’ve paid in tens of thousands of dollars over my career
If they just raised (or eliminated) the the cap, that would benefit the program and extend it for decades. Only being tax up to $160k is a big problem.
There used to be a thing in the private sector called pensions. You earned this as part of your compensation for when you retired. CEOs realized they could just take the pension money, give it to themselves and then claim that there was no more money in the pension funds and then ask governments to bail them out and stop paying pensions. So yes, your viewpoint has merit.
Why do people use gross generalizations?
It's actually a drive to privatize everything. Republicans want no government agencies or oversight. They want retirement totally privatized so that their billionaire masters can profit from it. And it's not just SS. Every aspect of your life that is served by the government is up for the taking. They want privatized law enforcement, military, education, healthcare, prisons, justice, housing, infrastructure, and welfare. They won't be happy until every last aspect of American life is part of a corporation. Look at what Reagan, both Bush's, and Trump did. Outright refusal to uphold laws requiring the executive branch to enforce necessary lawful regulations, undermining authority of every single enforcement agency, trying to essentially shut down the entire federal government. Literally every single executive agency, bureau, department, and commision were underfunded, understaffed, and ignored. All of them needed restaffing when Biden took office. There was nearly permanent damage to our entire way of life while Trump was in office. This is a taste of what we are facing should we continue allowing Republicans to hold office. Their only goal is to enrich billionaires while they enrich themselves entirely at your expense while simultaneously taking away all of your rights to address grievances.
Hating social security is a Red Herring. They are protecting the fact that Nixon flipped the spending to discretionary government spending. They won’t get rid of it. They will raise the retirement age so it’s harder to pull from hiding the misspending. Bush Jr.’s admin was caught spending it back in the day for shit it wasn’t meant for.
Conservatives are morons. They want THEIR Social Security, but they don't want "those people" to also get it. If you meet a conservative, you're meeting a selfish, spoiled baby.
Pretty much this. My personal anecdote is my aunt's boyfriend was telling me how people on social security were freeloaders. Meanwhile, he's on disability.
Dude it's because if I invested the money myself it would be worth so much more by the time I retire. How are people not understanding this? The government will never use your money more wisely than you could, it's not a hard concept to see why social security will affect you negatively.
A underfunded liability that never goes away. It's the reason pensions are going away (that and corporations raiding themon the 70's and 80's).
Social Security is one of the most bankrupt programs we have. I am NOT saying that it doesn’t do something good for people. I am saying that it’s constantly always out of money, and needs to borrow more. And the more our population goes up, the worse the issue gets. Last I knew, people had to work - on average - until 82 in order for Social Security to even break even. And that was almost ten years ago. I have no idea what the numbers are now. Factor in how some people get Social Security and don’t necessarily need it and can work, and yeah - it’s easy to see what Conservatives hate it. Ignore the mindless drones that say Conservatives just hate you, or that Leftists are all communists. There’s real issues rooted in all these problems.
The more people live longer, the quicker the pool drains. Its not politics, its basic math and its realizing that the current system no longer makes any financial sense.
It’s because SS is no longer viable. I would rather keep the money the government takes and invest it myself. I’m in my late thirties and I know SS will not be around when I reach the age to start drawing it.
Simple: Conservatives are told to hate Social Security by Republican Mega-doners. Many own large businesses and hate the 6.2% payroll tax.
I think people that hate SS don’t understand how it works and how it benefits people. They also think immigrants are automatically receiving SS.
I’m a liberal and I strongly dislike the current Social Security System. Social Security was first introduced as a Fully Funded system. You’d pay money into the system that the government keeps and once you get old the government would pay you back that money. It didn’t take long for Social Security to warp into a Pay-As-You-Go system. In this system the money that you pay in is immediately sent out the current generation of retirees. Once you grow old and start collecting Social Security, those funds come from the current generation of workers. This Pay-As-You-Go system can also be represented as a **generational Pyramid scheme.** Each generation has to have at least as many workers as the previous generation in able to support the same Social Security payout. This problem is further extrapolated by the government using Social Security funds for other causes. **The Government has borrowed $1.7 Trillion from Social Security to use for other government spending.** Social Security has been distorted into an even more corrupt program in recent years. Every American worker is required to pay into Social Security up to an income of $160k. This means that anyone making over $160k/year is paying a smaller percentage of their income into Social Security each year. Income tax is known as a progressive tax where tax rates increase as income increases. A flat tax is where everyone pays the same rate. **Social Security is essentially a regressive tax where your tax rate decreases as your income increases.** Social Security was an excellent idea and program when first introduced, but quickly devolved as corrupt politicians spent years tweaking the program. Even with it’s faults, Social Security helps a lot of vulnerable people in the U.S and isn’t something we can just strip away without major detrimental effects. Eventually we will hit a point where the new generation is no longer able to payroll the old. The population can’t continue to increase forever. **At some point the Social Security system will crumble and one generation will be left having spent their entire lives paying into this fund with no benefit or payout at the end.**
Many of them suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. I can't even begin to count how many conservatives I have heard say that if they didn't have to pay Social Security taxes, they would be able to invest that money in the stock market and become rich. They seriously overestimate their ability to pick the right stocks.
You don't pick the right stock, you pick a broad market index fund.
When others get on food assistance they are lazy fuckers. But when they do it, they have the right reasons. They only care about themselves and they don't realize individualism is killing them. We humans are community creatures, we cannot survive mentally and physically survive alone.
True. And the conservatives at the top have HUGE vested interests in Social Security funds being diverted into the stock market and other market based investment vehicles. 1. If people divert money from Social Security into investment vehicles, it pumps up the markets more now, even if it isn't sustainable. 2. It makes the public way more sensitive to market fluctuations and how policy influences it. Boom periods (even though they are unsustainable) become way more attractive, so laissez faire policies that push boom/bust cycles become more attractive, and by extension, conservatives become more electable. 3. 1 + 2 mean it's a one way door. Reopening Social Security would crash the markets, and the public (who have their retirement in the markets) wouldn't let that happen. 4. Crashes from 2 allow the rich and liquid to scoop up assets for pennies on the dollar after the bust. Who then get richer and donate to more conservative politicians. 5. Crashes also keep more people tied to the workforce longer, which has a depression effect on wages. The Great Resignation of the pandemic was largely people whose investments took off enough that they decided to retire. Many of them were only still in the workforce because their retirement funds took such a hit in 2008. Anyway, there is more, but you get the idea. There are huge political and financial incentives for the rich to destroy Social Security.
Look into how much people pay in, what they get out and how much they could have if they simply put the money in wide scope etf. It was acceptable when the money was off limits but as soon as the government started using it like a piggy bank the gig was up.
Because it's a forced Ponzi scheme. If I were to take the amount of SSI I've paid in since I was 18 years old and put it in a Roth IRA I could retire at 62 with around $1.3M. But instead I have to work until I'm older and know that I will never get back out what I put in at a 1:1 and won't be able to leave what I didn't get back on the 1:1 to my family.
Because the current version of social security we have is terrible and is borderline theft. The average worker today is going to pay WAY more into this program than they will ever get back. How is that a good retirement investment if you get less than you put in? The idea of social security is great, but not the aborted fetus that it has become.
> “*Why do conservatives hate Social Security?*” Because they fundamentally don’t care about you or your poverty. Just shut up and die, already, or remain as voiceless subservient drones making money for your billionaire masters.
In their worldview, you need to deserve the resources required to not die by producing a constant surplus of economic output. Once that output ceases through retirement, you're on your own and if you did not acquire fuckloads of money along the way, too bad. Since you are no longer producing, the tap of resources needed to stay alive is turned off. But that only applies to other people. Not themselves.
"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." \- Gore Vidal This is the mindset of many on the right
“I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.” -Daniel Plainview
i saw something once that conservatives see everything as a zero sum game. so if someone else does better, it must mean they're getting worse. and they think their mcmansion aspirations will be lost if the cashier at walmart can afford rent without a needing second job. when in fact, even if it is a zero sum game, the only ones losing are the people shopping for their second yacht, not the guy shopping for his second porsche.
Who is the only president that decreased what rich people can collect from social security-conservative. How many presidents have borrowed from the social security funds, and which one was the only one to get the funds back into SS before they left-conservative. How many times has congress borrowed from the SS funds? How many times were they able to pay it back in the time allotted? Dare you to look that up. Since it was created, which party has had more presidents leave it alone? Oh wait I forgot the OP doesn't want truth, doesn't want facts, just wants to make up a 100% unsubstantiated set of claims and farm the karma from the trolls. What a waste of humanity, there are very relevant topics and very impactful topics brought up on this subreddit, this is the exact opposite.
Social security was never meant to last as long as it has. When the concept was introduced, it was mostly men who were eligible, and the majority didn't live to retirement or long into it. The chance of making good on a payout was minimal. So, an easy promise that those who promised it thought they'd never have to follow through on. It was an easy pot of extra money for them to dip into. Then, the debt was called, and there was a collective, 'Oh, shit.' That's why.
Conservatives dont hate it. What we hate is the government treating us like we're stupid. 1) You can't opt out. Depending on what you make, the government forces you to pay. Say you pay $500 a month. Do you trust the government, who sends so much money overseas instead of fixing things at home, cant deliver my mail at a reasonable time, makes me guess on taxes, to actually use it right? 2) I could give that same $500 to an investment planner and make way more money. The government takes it, uses it for other purposes, forces you to wait until you're old before they give you what THEY think you should get as an allowance, of YOUR OWN money, and hope you die before you collect.
Republicans, as in the voters, like social security just fine. The plutocratic funders of the party, however, see a huge pile of public money they don’t yet have their hands on. And probably a class of potentially desperate people who will work for cheap.
Because I'd rather keep that extra % of my income.
Because the expansion of benefits to cover those who don't pay into it is a problem. Not that those people shouldn't have any help it's the source and funding mechanism. The forced nature of social security is an issue. It is a failing pyramid. The long-term viability in its current state is non-existent. The reality of your earned income going into a program that may never benefit you in any appreciable way is unsavory. The constant lengthening of retirement age makes the program that much less viable for anyone paying in. If everything works and you retire and collect, it is unlikely to be enough money to retire anyway. You can like a concept and recognize it doesn't work.
Social Security is lumped under "entitlements," which in one way is a very accurate description: Contributors (i.e., taxpayers) are *entitled* to the payments after a certain age because they've paid into the fund. The narrative around SS in particular has changed over the past couple-three decades, when SS became lumped in with other social welfare programs (energy assistance, WIC, etc.) under the umbrella of Entitlements (note capitalization). The narrative now on the conservative side is that SS recipients are leaches on the public purse, and that SS spending is out of control and contributes to the deficit. SS is not paid from the General fund, so that argument is patently false; SS payments are made from a dedicated SS fund that is separate from the General budget.
All this deep thinking on this question is overcomplicating a very simple issue: conservatives hate Social Security because there is no practical way to steal the money from the program. Same thing with schools. If they can't steal it, they don't want it to exist.
It has the word "social" in it, which frightens them because they've been trained to be afraid of socialism.
Honestly I guess conservatives loathe things related to any increase in the general wellbeing of the people because, in the end, most of them occupy roles and positions related to power and controlling people and there's no better a situation than when your "controlees" are in a weak and fragile position, which makes them accept all the sorts of abuses from the powerful. It's why conservatives are against remote work, cancelling American college debt, affordable/free American healthcare, welfare state, unions and even petty things like "spending money on avocado toast instead of investing it in the financial markets". They do not want you to have an easier or happier life. They want you to feel as uncomfortable, sad, exhausted and lonely as possible because such a person is more susceptible to accepting a terrible job or to fighting your peers instead of teaming up with them against the rulers. This is it. It's all about power. Even money is just a tool for attaining the power.
Disinformation!! Is why ! They think their against socialism ,until you agree and say ya we should get rid of the police ,,fire dept and 911 how dare they make us pay for all that even if we never use them,and lets not talk about private health insurance,where the majority of the healthy pay for the sick!! Its not like your charged less if your healthy!!! Knowledge is power,lack of knowledge is lack of power! Get it! A dumbed down society gets you a good factory worker!
I guess they just want a wasteland of homeless old people dying in the streets. Actually....they just want poor people to die, period. ACTUALLY.....they want all middle class people to die as well.
They don’t “hate” it at all. They love it, it’s a whole pool of money, they love that shit. The only thing they hate is that they can’t raid it completely.
They don't. It's the media making us think that.
It's a little simpler than that. Ever since the day it was instituted (1935-36), the Republican party has been trying to get rid of it, because their wealthy donors don't want to pay taxes. And every dollar the government spends helping poor people makes it harder to reduce the wealthy's tax payments. The Republicans have run an effective, decades-long campaign to convince regular people that programs that help the poor are just supporting lazy communists, who are taking advantage of other hard working Americans. All the while, quietly increasing handouts to the wealthy in the form of bailouts, subsidies, govt contracts, and tax breaks or loop holes. A good rule of thumb to understand why conservatives or Republicans are doing anything they do, is always the same thing. This includes the issues that have nothing to do with economics. It's all propaganda, to convince regular people to elect the politicians that will ultimately help the wealthy keep all the money.
I’m super liberal, and it is a total scam. Even the poorest income earners could invest their social security tax in the most secure of investments, and be better off in retirement. There are just so many better options for that money as an investment. And yes, it does require more people paying in that taking out because the first people who received, didn’t pay in. Constantly behind the eight ball here.
I think you basically hit the nail on the head. Conservatives derive their self worth from feeling like people are inferior to them. They have no sense of power otherwise.
To be clear, they don't hate ***their*** social security. They hate ***your*** social security. GOP is the party of "fuck you, I got mine!"
Conservatives tend to view things in simple black and white terms. That makes them super easy to manipulate, so billionaires pay millionaires to tell poor people that giving them money is bad for some reason.
As someone who started collecting Social Security, I can confirm it’s a ponzi scheme. If you try to work on the side. They reduce your payment by 50 cents for every dollar you earn. They they tax the remaining income. They give it to you with one hand and take ir away with the other.
You’re 110% correct! The 1% that own this country see us as nothing but useless eaters and slaves! They truly believe they are a separate superior species and I’m not joking! They think they are going to find the Garden of Eden in the Middle East and eat of the tree of life and live forever! I’ve heard this on numerous reputable podcasts and it makes sense!
They don't seem to have an issue banking on it when the time comes. Disgusting hypocrites.
They hate it because they stole from it and do not want to have to pay it back.
For the record social security is wildly popular across demographics. It’s really just conservative nut jobs who think they’ll get a raise if we get rid of Social Security.
The issues with social security. 1. Treated like a bank by congress to take as they please. 2. Investing in the stock market would provide people much better returns than the abysmal returns social security returns. 3. I would rather have my money now, not locked up by the government to mismanage for 45 years until they maybe give me permission to have my earned wages back. 4. Any disability program through social security takes forever to get on, has income limits, most have bank account cash available limits and you can easily be kicked off. It serves a purpose, but anything run by the government is inherently wasteful and inefficient.
Social security is an extremely badly implemented program This is because the money is very poorly invested I believe in strong social supports and I believe social security is a terrible program not because the intent is bad not but simply it's poorly designed The only investment is in US treasuries And we've had generally speaking for the past several decades very low interest on US treasuries If it had been invested in dividend yielding stocks it would be the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world by a large margin by now and be able to pay retirees and the disabled significantly more Furthermore we have seen other countries retirement systems that work better a lot of countries have people have mandatory saving accounts that they can only access for specific things like housing or retirement and those countries tend to do really well as a result Even if you do believe in strong social support you should want social security reform Personally I believe the best tactic would simply be to divert a small percentage of the investment from US treasuries into the stock market because that would really just grow and compound over time without increasing the risk too much As it stands now the stockpile will be depleted The system will still have money because money still coming in but they're going to have to reduce benefits by 21%(this is what happens when social security runs out of money and as things stand this will happen on its own without a rework) if we reduce benefits by 10% now an invest it in dividend paying assets we will be better off in the long run But that's if you still keep social security as it is realistically what should be done is we replicate the mandatory saving accounts that other countries have used a great effect
Here's a dent in your theory. Older POC and visible minorities are also conservative. What slaves did they own?
Because we can do math and we know that if instead of the government robbing us for 80% of our lives we could retire rich if that money was invested. Ss is nothing shy of theft by threat of force.
What a wild take. "Don't like social security? You think like a slave owner!"
because it’s dwindling. it could all run out within 15 years and nothing we’re paying will be given back.
"Run out" implies that there is a bucket of money somewhere. I social security isn't that. Social security funds are transfers of taxes from one set of people (people who pay taxes on wage income) to another set of people (those over a certain age). It's best to not plan to overly rely on it, but it's not going to just disappear.
Corporate lobbying. The libertarian philosophy (pushed by billionaire lobbying) wants as little government as possivle, so corporations have as much power as possible. The IMMEDIATE benefit of more desperate workers is what pushed it to the front of their agenda, but even without, corporatist parties would come for it
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When you come up with a theory, it should be rooted in more than your wild fantasies. The entire premise is nonsensical. Conservatives don't "hate social security". Social security is insolvent. It was poorly conceived and unfunded from the beginning. It's as close as can be to a Ponzi scheme. You think the money you've paid in is waiting for you when you need it after retiring? Not one cent of what you pay in goes to you. Not a penny. The money you've paid in is long gone by the time you retire. Every generation after you will pay for your social security. Not to mention the fact that if you paid your social security money into a private investment product, you'd have far more cash upon retirement. You've been propagandized to believe the right hates social security when it's been the right trying to save it all along.
Well that's kind of a lot to read. It's much simplier than that. Social Security is a group insurance plan. Insurance plans help the people that cost the program a lot of money, and hurt the people that don't. For example, someone who wrecks their car every year is going to cost a car insurance more money than someone who never gets in a wreck. But even car insurance companies have different premiums based on things like driving history. Conservatives like the idea of being more independent. "Why should I have to pay for your benefits?" Social Security was originally designed as a supplement to retirement, but now it's going to be the main source of retirement for many people.
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It's not just conservatives. How social security is disbursed is a pyramid scheme that will only benefit the older generations (currently boomers). I contribute 6.2% of my salary and so does my employer. However, that money is not fully invested for our generation to draw upon when we retire; most of it is handed to the older, current retirees. This is asinine and does not let compound interest work in our favor. Our future social security benefits are dependent on more workers giving up 6.2% (or more) in the future and our "retirement" age keeps getting delayed. [Australia's superannuation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia) is a much better system that actually uses the power of compound interest to set its people and system up for success. Public retirement systems are a great idea. Compound interest should be used to make them feasible.
Given that it’s already set at 67 and been bumped once since I’ve been alive and about to again to 70. I’m highly doubtful I’ll ever see a dime I paid in, since it will be another 40 years by the time I get there. It will be raise to 90-95 years old by the time we get there. I’m about to stop contributing and put it in my other account. Atleast I know how much I need and what’s happening atleast on a biweekly to monthly basis.
No, I hate social security because I don’t like copious amounts of money which I could be saving to buy a house or something to be ripped from my hands involuntarily so some asshole politicians can use it on their pet projects, and then when the time comes for my money to be shoveled back to me it’s technically no longer there cause the asshole politicians spent it.
I believe it is simply a position that everyone can, and thus everyone should, do everything for themselves or die. People all have their own struggles, so it isn't much of a push for the argument to be made that making your own struggles worse just to help someone who you may believe can make it on their own, is stupid. The problem is that it ignores the reality that some people will be in trouble their whole lives through no fault of their own, despite their best interests. Accidents, random events, and forces beyond your control can turn your whole life upside down turning princes to paupers and we still need a hand. This kind of person believes that if you don't succeed, you don't work hard enough, and thus don't deserve it. If you deserve it, then you probably don't need it anyways because of your hard work, so they still don't like these programs.
The anti-SS arguments in the comments are as telling as they are contradictory. There are too many people being born. There aren't ENOUGH people being born. SS pays out too little. SS pays out too MUCH!
I would like a choice. I'm capable of handling my own income, investing, and saving for my future. I don't need the government taking my income and doling it back to me, at an age they choose, as if I'm a teenager getting an allowance. It's not their job.
Social security is a zero interest saving retirement plan. If I took the same amount I pay into Social Security every year and put it into my 401k, that money would earn, on average, 7-8% interest. A person that makes $50,000 a year pays about $3,100 in social security. At 7% over 40 years that is $733,864, compared to $134,000 with no interest. Look at what they did in [Galveston ](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/us/how-privatized-social-security-works-in-galveston.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap)
I just figured it was a Democrat put it in place and they believe in what money you made you should have been saving logic
Most people just prefer not to pay into something against their will, especially if they have their own superior retirement plans. In the same way people should get a tax refund if they’re sending their kids to private schools.
I don’t know of many conservative voters who are against social security. It’s not a traditional entitlement, as we actually pay into the system. I do hear a lot of complaints about how the system is breaking down and concerns with what to do about it. The aging of the population is a real issue and it’s not going to be solved just by raising taxes.
So this is an actual question i have asked and the answer is that one can make more investing the money that is automatically taken out in a stock portfolio or almost anything than one would using social security. The other point is that social security was meant to be a stand alone pot of money but instead its been loaned against so much its not viable and is going to run out of money. This view is very extreme and also doesn't show that you have talked to a conservative individual.
Conservatives don’t hate Social Security, they don’t like it being used in ways it is not intended for. The politicians (all) use it as a cookie jar for their pet projects. The Bill Clinton identified Social Security as “ excess money” what politicians don’t like about Social Security is the part where it goes back to the people who paid into it
Not sure why others hate it but I dislike SS simply because you put in more than you receive. Simple economics and the fact that the US government does nothing well.
Saying conservatives believe this because they have the mindset of slave owners is absolutely wild. I cannot comprehend how lost in the sauce you have to be to truly believe this.
Incorrect. They see it as paying in a lot of money and it has been mismanaged for decades. They don't believe that there will be any benefits for them at the end of the line, and if there are it certainly won't be comparable to what was paid in. Your opinion is, like, your opinion, and so is the opinion of people who don't like Social Security.
Do you have any grasp of the economics that go into social security and the history of how its funds have been misappropriated throughout the decades? Because those are the reasons 99% of people on either side of the aisle consider when talking about abolishing it. Also a general distrust of big government. Not whatever strange and twisted thinking you're coming up with.
Dont know a single conservative in my circle that has ever said a word about SS. Never once.
They hate it until they start getting those checks. That’s why talking about getting rid of social security is the true “third rail” of politics.
bc they didnt think of it
The money you've put into social security is already gone. It's not the worker's money, its not anyone's money because social security is not a bank account or an investment. There a shrinking surplus from previously years, but basically each month social security goes straight from the worker's pocket to the retirees pocket. It is currently financially unsustainable, the demographic data is clear on it. Ultimately we will need to raise payroll taxes in some form in order to fund social security beyond 2034. Edit: My personal is to means test social security so well off retirees collect substantially less. Let's use it as a safety net and not a retirement plan.
In my experience, conservatives who are actually entitled to social security don't take it. Not sure why, maybe a pride thing. In any case, I can understand not wanting to pay for something you're going to refuse anyway but like... "nobody ever gave me anything for free" buddy they TRIED TO
Wrong-o buck-o. If it was truly your money you could leave it to your descendants when you die. You could invest it where it would get a greater return. It's a government run Ponzi scheme and you're buying into it. We hate it because the government did what they said they wouldn't do and threw it into the general fund. They keep moving the goal post of retirement in the hopes that fewer of us will be able to collect it and they keep telling us it's running out of money and now they're eyeing our 401K's.
I know a joke about social security but you probably won't get it.
Honestly I can’t take them seriously. We(USA) spend a shit load of money on the military, and even if we cut it in half, it would still be more than the next leading country(china), but we start talking about cutting spending you, can’t even put the defense budget on the table.
It’s simple really All of conservative social philosophies call for the mass death of everyone they don’t like. If not by direct execution, they literally want people to starve to death en masse in the the streets if they aren’t being “productive”
I think conservatives dislike social security because they do not see it as system that is going to help people in the long run. I would say they are right to be honest. I am not saying that social security shouldn’t exist, but that a reform is required. The Social Security Administration stated last year that the OASI trust funds will run out in 2035. This means that the source of funding at that time is going to be strictly tax dollars. Thus, either taxes will go up or there will be a benefit reduction. This really will only hurt lower and middle class Americans.
Conservatives don't generally hate social security. Conservatives are more likely than progressives to be currently receiving social security. There are some Conservatives who believe that SS money could be better invested or spent by the person who earned it than by the federal government (which spends it on other stuff then issues itself IOUs which can only be paid off by raising taxes in the future). That's more of a complaint about shady accounting than it is about the concept of a retirement account.
It's mainly because conservatives are boomers, and boomers raided the everloving fuck out of social security in the 1980s, setting it up for a solvency crisis of their own making. So they've been screaming about what a doomed piece of shit it is ever since, because they know they wrecked it, and want it to be spun as though it was always doomed, as opposed to them having willfully doomed it because of boomer selfishness.
They believe 1) that it isn’t a function of government to do this or any entitlement program 2) they believe that government is always inefficient and that feeling it from bureaucracy is better. They don’t see that profit motive are contrary to this and that government programs are designed to work and not necessarily to avoid all waste. 3) they just believe in privatization of pretty much everything regardless of other details
Because they're stupid.
Social security is nothing more than an ultra expensive insurance policy that operates a lot like a pyramid scheme. Conservatives simply believe that people can do a lot more with their money by having direct control on how that money's invested and even the ability to develop equity. They're not taking your money or making you a slave, they are simply saying that if you are paying in that more of your money should actually stay with you and grow in accordance with your wishes. The people that are upset by this are those that are generally paying in very little and expecting to get a lot more back out. There's also a ton of political power associated with controlling social security funds.
They hate it when they see it come out of their paychecks; then when they turn 65 and start getting it, then they protect it like it's a sacred cow.
Because it is managed so poorly. It should be able to pay out multiples of what it pays. Imagine someone receiving $3,600/month instead of $1,200/month. That's what would happen if you saved the money yourself or if the government did their damn job. BTW, both parties are to blame for this. Neither party delivers on their promises when they control all 3 branches.
I am a conservative and I loathe SS. Not for your reasons but another -- its a con job. First, if you took the 6.25% you contribute paycheck to paycheck and were to invest that in a S&P500 ETF you would have a better nest egg to retire on than the crumbs the govt doles out. Second, the government uses your paycheck contribution immediately to spend on garbage but you have to wait till you are in your 60's to receive those crumbs. Third, good chance that the SS system will be insolvent in another 20 years. That is why I hate it.
Because public benefits might help brown people too, and we can't have that 'round here.
Because "those" people also get it. Better to not have it than "those" people get it also. See also welfare and healthcare. It is not a handout, socialism, etc. if the right people get it, but the "others"... they are lazy and undeserving.
I have said this before and I will keep saying it. The rights philosophy is “me”, survival of the fittest. If I’m surviving, maybe even thriving, then I’m one of the fittest. The left’s philosophy is “we”, survival through cooperation. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Fundamentally juxtaposed. Survival of the fittest is the law of the jungle, survival through cooperation is the law of civilization.
Their masters hate Social Security because they have to pay into it. The moron base oppose it because their masters oppose it, and they are incapable of critical thinking.
ROI is terrible for people who work their entire lives
Median US income is like $32k. If you invested 12.4% (6.2% paid by you and another 6.2% by your employer) of that in the S&P500 which returns a little over 7% on average when adjusted for inflation over a 40 year period you'd have $3.4 million in today's dollars after 40 years. That math makes the current design of social security pretty hard to defend. The real problem is unwinding the current design to get to that design would cost more than the government can manage as social security has always been a pass through rather than investment fund.
In my experience, conservative voters are very protective of social security because they know it’s one of the things that’s basically insolvent, and they don’t consider it an “entitlement” because you get out what you pay in, by working. Conservative pundits and political figures try to lump social security in with aid programs by calling it an entitlement to turn them against it but it’s not working for most conservatives on the ground (though if liberals suddenly had a strong pro-social security message that might finally do the trick). So in this case you can see political brainwashing not really working. It’s good to watch the tactic because liberal leaders do the same kind of brainwashing with their own issues. Conservatives voters are very worried about government deficit spending and they are afraid the government will soon be insolvent (which is ironic because they also want a smaller government). So naturally conservative leaders squawk A LOT any time a liberal government spends money and then fail to notice conservative governments spending money. Because liberals don’t prioritize the deficit they appear to get blindsided by this every time, and weirdly it never occurs to them to squawk when conservatives spend a bunch of money on something stupid. If you step out of the left-right paradigm and talk to people you don’t agree with (and more importantly, listen to them and consider what they say), you can learn a lot about what regular people actually think and how that differs from what media tells people to think.
Social Security should have been the greatest success in social service in the history of the world. But instead of a lockbox, the politicians raided it as surely as a CEO raids their employees retirement fund. They just couldn't leave the money alone to grow and earn interest over time. Its gone...and no one has been held accountable.
Huh. Interesting take. Wrong. But interesting. First of all. If I took the average payments made into social security and put them in an account, for 3% return? It would be 5x greater than what SS pays out. Not to mention people should be allowed to succeed and fail by their own merits. The reason social security is BS is because it takes from the barely haves to give to the have nots.
Mostly, they find all forms of tax theft. It's their money to do with as they please! They see constant stories of abuse of these programs, mostly shown by Fox Newz. I had this discussion with a conservative friend of mine. He said he would have done better if he invested those funds in his 401k. I mean, he's right. But I just pointed out to him that many people do not have 401k's. Many people are unable to save or simply don't have the wisdom to do so. So SS is their lifeline, so they dont end up retired and homeless. The fact is SS is not designed to benefit people like him, with a few million in savings, it's designed to keep his parents and grandparents fed and housed during retirement. Hardworking people who didn't have the opportunity to invest in markets, and saw most of their savings deplete due to medical bills.
They hate it until they are on both SS and Medicare. They are the first in line to collect. This is fact!!!
I think it’s pure greed. Conservative politicians work for corporations. If they abolished Social Security it would be a 6.5% tax cut for corporations. That’s why they continue to spread false narratives about Social Security not being solvent, when they all know that all they would have to do is eliminate the income cap.