New Federal Benefit Payment Program

[Morsecode]

The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a
“Federal Benefit Payment.”;
This is not a benefit – its earned income!
Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too.

It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.
If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to
$180,000 invested in Social Security.

If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both your and your employer’s contributions) at an impossible to sustain 8% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment .

Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive
$39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month .

That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security
benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the
Social Security Administration (Google it - it’s a fact).

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're
98 if you retire at age 65)!
I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.

Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did.
They took our money and used it elsewhere. They “forgot” that it was OUR money they were taking.
They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them.

And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed.
And recently, they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer.
But is it our fault they misused our investments?


Then call it what it is:
Our Earned Retirement Income. 

[barrytrot]

While I agree Social Security bites your math is wildly off.

1% interest per year for 40 years is only a total gain of 49%. So I'm not sure where you jumped into the million range.

If you fix your math you'll see that RIGHT NOW Social Security actually pays reasonably (based on your other numbers).

[IdahoCopper]

The Social Security "contract" all of us signed, guaranteed us nothing.

[Morsecode]

Not my math...copy & paste job from a petition making the rounds. Maybe it's the "compounded monthly" thing..? Does that get it there?

I'd have no way of knowing the math.

[barrytrot]

That's the problem with these "petitions" they are made WRONG intentionally to get people fired up.

Any sane individual knows Social Security is bogus. But beefing up the numbers by 500% against doesn't help one's argument.

[inflationhawk]

There are some that would say social security is INSURANCE, not a benefit, and that a means test should apply to getting any social security payments.

[Morsecode]

Fixed it

[barrytrot]

Good point inflationhawk. If your parent dies prior to your being 18 you collect Social Security also potentially, so that and the other pre-retirement assistance poritions are another thing to consider prior to just doing the math (but when you do the math, do it correctly.)

[barrytrot]

Ok, 8% is NOT meager. That's really very decent as a sustained amount.

There are many that do better than 8% but the average of the market is negative over the past few years.

Let's compare it FAIRLY here. With other insurance programs. I think that "whole life" policies pay something like 2.5% after fees. So that still puts social security right in the ball park of "fairness" RIGHT NOW.

[barrytrot]

People have got to start realizing that sustaining MASSIVE interest is near impossible.

For some reason Dave Ramsey has been claiming 12% annual returns since the advent of his show and that by simply "buying mutual funds". That's laughable, but I digress.

In this market if you can gain 5% per year (on average) you are doing decently. I know everyone here is making 25% returns, but this is the place of the super-investor, I'm talking about the average non-super-investor.

Whenever someone comes out with one of these, why XX is bad, all they have to do is inflate the interest by a couple points and of course it sounds bad.

Use a real rate of sustainable return and you will see it's not so bad. Yet

The issue with Social Security is not it's current state it is that it is going away completely and so instead of 8% we get negative 100% return. That's the problem.

The fact that it's not a GREAT investment isn't the problem. Everyone knows that and it has the word "Social" right in the name so you know it's not "Capitalist". So it's going to be WAY BELOW meager.


Anyway, sorry for the rant but it irks me that people believe 8% is MEAGER. That's astonishing. Again, I know that lots of people do far better than 8%. I'm talking AVERAGE. And I'm talking sustaining 8% over 40 years!

[Morsecode]

I'm still fine-tuning it...just like the gov't that lies to sell us this stuff in the first place.

[mongo]

Could I just have all the money ive put into SSI since I started paying in. You will never hear from me again and I guaranty I can do better in the next 20 years then they've done in the last 35. Why could I guaranty it? Cause I sure as heck couldn't do any worse.

Keep on Stacking and Sorting
Mongo