re: Social Security's insolvency date is now a year earlier

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SS is 100% an entitlement

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100% would imply we didn’t pay a dime into the system. This is false
Getting welfare when you don’t even pay taxes is an entitlement

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At its core it's actually laughable..."we're going to take and save your money and then you'll get it back in retirement". Because government is so good with money.

The structure of it is absolutely very similar to a Ponzi scheme. The only people that made out like bandits were the first ones to collect it and not pay into it their whole working lives.

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The only element missing for it to be a ponzi scheme is the fraud which must be present to make a ponzi scheme a ponzi scheme. That fraud is generally two fold.,,,,first is to NEVER return any of the investors money but to simply find more investors and pay them, the second is over exaggerating expected returns. One knows fully well where the money the receive is coming from....no one misleads us on that point. We also know full well what the expected return is....its a matter of public record and is not exaggerated in the least. I understand it sounds cutting edge to say Ponzi Scheme but the simple fact is Social Security does not fit the bill in any fashion.

The people who "make out" is the entire population of the United States. Show by a raise of hands how many of us want our aging parents living with us in retirement, the orphan from down the street or a disabled stranger. Show by a raise of hands how many of us want to live with our adult children when we retire. Show by a raise of hands how many want orphans, the disabled, the elderly and the widowed to live hand to mouth and be at the mercy of the kindness of strangers who aren't compelled by law to assist in their financial upkeep. We all "make out".

FInally, even if your parents are lucky enough to drop dead before they retire, no one in your family lives past retirement age, no one is orphaned or becomes disabled, on average everyone will collect what they have paid within 11 years of retiring. If your FRA is 67 now your life expectancy is a little over 78....that means most people live longer in retirement than it takes to collect every penny of what they paid during their lives into social security. Its better for women than men because we die earlier. Even if you are lucky and everyone you know personally dies before they retire and no one becomes orphaned or disabled strangers will do all 3 and without some modest income they will be a burden on those among us who lead charmed lives. There ain't no free lunch, unless we are willing to take in orphans with no additional income of watch as they die from hunger and exposure and become victims of predators orphans are going to be a burden on society through no fault of their own. I understand it feels good for some to say "frick 'em" but unfortunately for the sick fricks who do think that way the rest of us are compassionate and we make the rules and one of them is we are going to contribute to the income of the orphaned, widowed, disabled and elderly.

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It was never meant to be income for retirement. It was meant to be a lifeline for those who couldn’t care for themselves due to death of a spouse or a physical disability

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So do people with pensions, Railroads etc... Pay for these folks as well or is it just the Social security folks?

Got my first check today. Full retirement age.

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Maybe quit giving it to those who haven’t paid in? It wasn’t meant support everyone.

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^This. There are two older ladies both 80 in our local community who never worked a damn day in their lives but have been drawing their dead husbands Social Security for nearly 20 years, yet my 78 year old mother who worked her arse off and paid into that shite for 40 years can only draw her check and not my father's also who died over 10 years ago and paid into it for over 40 years also. Total bullshite.

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What was retirement like for middle and lower class people prior to social security?

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25% of retirement aged people in the US, those who worked their entire lives, lived below the poverty line. Almost 80% of orphans did, about 40% of widows and about 80% of the disabled. That number is now around 10%, 25%, 10% and 40%. That is based on income, the same as it was before social security, it does not include items like food stamps, subsidized housing, subsidized health care etc etc etc. Those items are not considered income for the purpose of identifying those below the poverty line.

There are 2 things most people refuse to know about social security. First it is OUR frickING MONEY. It was never supposed to be used to pay for ANYTHING other than the needs, in a modest fashion, of the elderly, the orphaned, the disabled and the widowed. It has been used for other things and that is the problem...we should have never tolerated it.

The second thing is everyone single last one of us is enjoying things like national security and roads and what not because we have collectively saved OUR frickING MONEY and that money is leant to government agencies who pay us back in a modest but steady fashion. Without the Treasury Bonds that our money HAS to be invested in, by law, because it'd be a damned foolish idea to simply hide it under a mattress, we would not have a financially viable nation. That investment funds all manner of shite we expect and take for granted. Its either fund it that way, and on average get every penny back in 11 years after retirement age and not see high levels of poverty amongst our most vunerable populations OR reach in our wallets and pay as we go and never see any of the money directly again. There ain't no free lunch.

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I never understood how this is even possible without there being a significant uproar from the people who actually work and pay into SS.

Why does more $$ come out of SS than what goes in?

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Because from the inception it provided and provides a modest income to those unable to earn any income - orphans, widows, the elderly and the disabled.

It’s already gone

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Trust Fund

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There Is no “trust fund”, just a virtual box full of IOU’s.

FICA taxes i believe pay for alot of the social security and medicare. My only issue is why do Pensions not have to pay fica taxes to helped with disabled etc..? So people on the railroad for example will get their full retirement while people getting FICA taken out for SS will not get their full retirement when its time to retire.