Redesigning Social Security
American Thinker,
by
Joel K. Douglas
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
5/25/2024 2:54:27 AM
How might we change the premise of Social Security to make it fully funded, more equitable, and sustainable indefinitely?
Social Security is societal insurance, not an individual retirement plan. It’s intended to protect individuals against income loss due to retirement, disability, or death. It supports disabled individuals, survivors, and children and reduces poverty.
Social Security protects taxpayers across American society. Without Social Security, millions would face poverty, straining families and state and local governments, increasing inequality, and destabilizing the economy.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
Trigger2 5/25/2024 4:24:02 AM (No. 1724336)
Here's a suggestion: Stop giving it out to people who've never paid into the system.
88 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
anniebc 5/25/2024 4:30:07 AM (No. 1724340)
Government is too darn big. Government needs to get out of 95% of what it involves itself in. Social Security is a rip-off no matter how you slice it. Government needs to stop bailing people out (college loans, businesses-real estate, etc., markets, housing, welfare, etc.) of everything, and it needs to stop regulating everything. Everything government touches gets screwed up. Humans need God not government or kings. It's what God was trying to tell the Israelites when they begged for a king to be like all the other peoples. America got a good start, but thanks to would be gods, we're here now.
28 people like this.
Social Security has always been FDR's Ponzi scheme. At the start of it, you needed to be 62 to begin collecting payments. The average life expectancy in the 1930's was 58. You do the math.
30 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
chumley 5/25/2024 6:05:33 AM (No. 1724369)
They forced us to pay into it our whole lives. It is one of the biggest chunks extorted from our paychecks. Then the crooks in DC started raiding the account to fund their corrupt little schemes, replacing the money with worthless IOUs. Nobody with the power to stop it seemed to have any interest in doing so.
Then they started mandating vaccines for kids that caused massive spikes in autism, which caused the rolls to increase like crazy. Now the covid shots are doing it even more, for those who survived. And that doesn't even begin to address the fakers.
We keep electing thieves and are surprised when we get stolen from.
36 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Lazyman 5/25/2024 6:44:49 AM (No. 1724390)
10% of Paterson, Nj is on SS Disability. What now?
14 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
homefry 5/25/2024 6:44:49 AM (No. 1724391)
When SS was first invented, a person had to be 65 years old to draw. The average life span was 59 years. dim-0s meant to rob working people their whole working lives only to have most die before drawing anything.
14 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
EJKrausJr 5/25/2024 7:00:44 AM (No. 1724400)
If it's to be funded by the individual, ensure that the funds cannot be used by anyone else, IOWs, the funds are the individuals funds. No longer can government use SS as the piggy bank for any affirmative action programs that Congress critters can devise. The odds of this happening are that the author will be struck by lightening before that condition is legalized.
18 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
privateer 5/25/2024 7:01:44 AM (No. 1724401)
I won't hold my breath waiting for a 'hands on' redesign of the political 'third rail'.
13 people like this.
If you are one of the naive who have bought into the "delay going on SS to get more money later" idea.
I did the math on filing early vs. waiting. It took about 13 years for me to do better by waiting.
Get it while you can! I know someone right now who is on hospice that never filed for SS.
I believe it will be means tested at some point in the future (based on need).
Those in the system will be grandfathered in, but getting in at that point will become much less likely.
16 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
bpl40 5/25/2024 7:35:50 AM (No. 1724430)
Fails to mention THE critical reason why this contraption is failing and unfair. Since it's inception SS contributions from citizens have earned a paltry 1.2%/annum. The stock market since 1929 has earned over 7%. Fix that and the rest is easy.
17 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Mcscow sailor 5/25/2024 7:43:12 AM (No. 1724436)
Nice try. Two issues. 1). Inflation, at only 3.5%, would reduce the payout by 3/4 by age 65 and to virtually nothing by age 95. 2). Our gov has historically broadened and deepened the payout side of SS well beyond its original intent. Our gov simply cannot see a pile of cash without wanting to spend it.
18 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 5/25/2024 7:56:27 AM (No. 1724441)
The idea of re-designing the social security system was first raised by W who advocated a 401k-like system. But congress told him to stuff it.
But first things first. IMO, somebody has to figure out how to salvage America's financial system and its currency, the US dollar from ruin. And it needs to happen asap. Interesting, no? that no one in congress is uttering a word about it during the current election cycle. Why? Because profound financial impacts on us all is certain.
10 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
franq 5/25/2024 8:04:34 AM (No. 1724445)
They've talked about re-inventing the wheel a number of times. Fine, draw a line in the sand and do something. But I expect to receive every penny that was confiscated over almost 50 (starting in my late teens) years of working life. By my calculations, that will be 10 years from now. I received my first check this month.
10 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Strike3 5/25/2024 8:11:20 AM (No. 1724452)
#1 response is the best and only answer, plus keep the damned government's hands out of our cookie jar. The poor and underprivileged now live better than we do.
14 people like this.
The premise is incorrect. SS was designed as a temporary retirement plan to pay workers who had reached the age of 65 until their deaths or the deaths of their spouses. It was not designed for disability or payments to children. That is what private insurance is for. The bankrupting of the system is entirely due to govt trying to buy votes by handing out money to people who did not deserve it.
21 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
paral04 5/25/2024 8:25:16 AM (No. 1724464)
Thanks to the Democrats and their leader Lyndon Johnson, the Social Security Trust Fund was confiscated by the Treausry of the US and the funds have been squandered on God knows what? Now, they are worried about running out of money in the General Fund to make their payments. Every Senator that agreed to that, if still alive, should go to jail. In addition, everyone who lands on our shores is getting money for doing nothing. This has to stop NOW!!
18 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
hershey 5/25/2024 8:49:32 AM (No. 1724476)
How about putting the funds back into a separate account that the dems can't suck dry for pet projects (vote buying among them), and not giving it away to anyone (illegals) that never paid into it??? How about that?????
16 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Vaquero45 5/25/2024 9:07:11 AM (No. 1724492)
The government has been lying about Social Security since FDR first thought of it. It's a Ponzi scheme, pure and simple. My father started paying into it in 1935, as soon as it started. For years, he thought that the SS he started drawing in his 60's was "his" money that he'd been putting in all those years. I told him several times that SS was a transfer payment, and that the money he was getting was what I was paying into SS. I don't think he ever believed me - he was a "yellow dog" Democrat.
During my working years, I used to tell people that I would gladly give up any claims I had to it and say goodbye to the money I'd put in - if I could just get out of the program tomorrow. I would have done a lot better myself, investing on my own.
12 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
red1066 5/25/2024 9:11:51 AM (No. 1724495)
How about taking control of the money out of the hands of government and putting the money in the hands of the people who earned it. Didn't Chile do something like this decades ago and the people made three times as much money as when it was under government control. Let the people decide how their money is invested for their future.
4 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
smokincol 5/25/2024 9:26:52 AM (No. 1724515)
totally agree with #1 and I know of people, from other country's, who began collecting from Social Security back in the 80's and suspect, if they're still alive or in this country, they're still collecting from Social Security -
this is an acute example of the governance of the demcommie party to ruin this country by any means possible but mostly to bankrupt the treasury and make everyone depend on the government for their everyday needs and necessities ..... bad idea
8 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
rikkitikki 5/25/2024 9:27:51 AM (No. 1724517)
Can I just please have my own money back?
6 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
davew 5/25/2024 10:06:15 AM (No. 1724563)
This scheme is well intentioned and headed in the right direction, but it has a major problem. Issuing the bond when the child is born would be highly inflationary. The "American People" who buy the bonds would be the Federal Reserve major banks. This would pump trillions of dollars into the economy and send inflation through the roof. Who pays down the bond before the child reaches maturity and starts earning? Who pays down the bond if the child is never employed or disabled?
A better system would be to wait until the worker actually earns over a lifetime and retires and then have the "American People" buy the bond (i.e. incur the liability). This is basically how the system works now without the fiction of the SS Trust Fund that is allegedly the source of the payouts. FICA taxes or a general surcharge tax on all individual and corporate income would go to pay back the SS Bonds over time. This would offset some of its inflationary effect.
Social Security is an entitlement and the government has a legal and moral obligation to fund it for all those who qualify. That's the bottom line.
3 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 5/25/2024 10:41:02 AM (No. 1724605)
Sounds great until you get someone like Biden who causes inflation that wipes out all the gains and if that's not enough brings in millions of adults to collect without paying in anything.
2 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
DVC 5/25/2024 10:52:38 AM (No. 1724619)
Look at the system used in Chile, designed by smart young economists under the tutelage of Milton Friedman, a great economist. It has been making any and all Chilean citizens comfortable in their old age with solid retirement incomes and is NOT a government run Ponzi scheme like our disastrously designed mess.
4 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
stablemoney 5/25/2024 10:58:43 AM (No. 1724623)
Model assumes that every baby born will work throughout their life, and repay the initial $100K invested at their birth -- not likely. No mention of how much is deducted from employee paychecks. What about new arrivals into the country? We have 17 million illegals. What about stay at home spouses? Babies born with impairments, unable to work? Realistically, does anyone think the Democrats are going to give up control of the social security system?
6 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 5/26/2024 11:46:42 AM (No. 1725249)
The Social Security contribution for a worker in 2023 was 6.2% of their earnings. Assume the worker earns the average wage of $56,310 per year and contributed 6.2% of his earnings to an S&P 500 stock fund. The average annualized return for the S&P 500 index from 1976 to 2021 was approximately 11.9%
If the worker contributed 6.2% of every paycheck to the fund over a 45-year period, the total amount of contributions would be approximately $178,110. With an average annual rate of return of 11.9%, the value of the fund at the end of the 45-year period would be approximately $4,540,572, before any disbursements are made.
Even assuming a conservative average annual rate of return of 8%, the value of the fund at the end of the 45-year period would be approximately $1,604,171, before one cent is drawn out. This doesn't count the employer contribution.
Using those same assumptions with Social Security and that same worker begins receiving benefits at the full retirement age of 67, he would pay in the same amount, $178,110, but would only collect approximately $337,860 in lifetime benefits if he lived to age 84.
1 person likes this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
Muguy 5/26/2024 12:19:33 PM (No. 1725268)
To borrow a phrase from the libs-- "Social Security does not pay a 'living wage'"
The rate of inflation being what it is, those who rely solely on it in retirement are going to go under water financially, and those who have never paid into it should NOT get ANY Benefits.
W. Bush wanted to do some things to make it more financially stable, but the demonrat socialist Marxists said NO and it was considered "our thing" to quote a mafia phrase and nothing was done leading to the mess things are in now.
1 person likes this.
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