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Is it fair to say they're being paid if they paid into the system paying them for their entire working lives? Can someone please explain why people call Social

Is it fair to say they're being paid if they paid into the system paying them for their entire working lives? Can someone please explain why people call Social Security an entitlement? Am I missing something?

astral303 10y ago
It's language war. Entitlement spending is a great way to negatively frame social security.
- jackreichert 10y ago
  Well, now I understand why all those pesky employees of mine feel so entitled to getting their paychecks. It must be because they're millennials or something...
  - jonwachob91 10y ago
    I'm not certain... My first job as a programmer my boss use to bust my balls and joke that I must not care about getting paid because I often let my checks pile up before asking for them... (and I wasn't exactly flush with cash from another source...)
- CajunAlexTrebec 10y ago
  To be clear, the money I'm paying into Social Security today is being consumed by current Social Security recipients. It is not being set aside for me to use when I theoretically begin to draw Social Security in the future.
timlyo 10y ago
I'm thinking from the government's perspective. It's still money that is being removed from the treasury that they have to factor into the budgets.
pluma 10y ago
In Germany at least, public retirement funds are "pay-as-you-go", i.e. you don't pay in to save up money for yourself, you pay in to finance the current payouts to other people who previously paid into the system (and so on). Of course nobody treats it that way -- you'll hear a lot of "my pension" talk especially from people close to retirement and those who are unaware of how low their pensions will be a the current rate. Theoretically the system could be justifiably stopped at any second and simply drained by the current pensioners (which would probably happen almost instantly). But good luck explaining that to people raised under the false assumption that the public pensions are "safe" (as politicians like to announce so frequently). Our best bet would probably be "universal basic income for everyone below retirement age" but pensions are "topped up" to parity with basic income. A not-insignificant portion of pensioners already gets pensions below social security levels (meaning it is topped up to social security levels -- not that they get welfare on top). You could then fade out the pension system and replace it with basic income.
- Unklejoe 10y ago
  Social security works basically the same way in the USA. Once a system like that is in place, it's very hard to stop the pipeline. I honestly don't see the purpose of that type of system either. Why create this pipeline of money anyway? Why not just take the contributions that everyone makes and put them into individual retirement accounts? Assuming the system is stable (which it's probably not), it seems there would be virtually no difference between me paying for the current retirees (and expecting my children to pay for my retirement) vs. me paying into my own retirement. I'm not too familiar with these concepts, so maybe someone will school me.
  - adwn 10y ago
    > I honestly don't see the purpose of that type of system either. Why create this pipeline of money anyway? Why not just take the contributions that everyone makes and put them into individual retirement accounts? Because after WWII, there were no retirement accounts in Germany (simplified and not completely correct, but you get the point). Should they have let old people starve?
gumby 10y ago
Yes. The SS system is clever, but it required a lot of sleight of hand to get it into place -- but that approach has kept it alive for 80 years so far. First, SS is universal rather than means tested in order to garner enough support to keep it in place. It's ridiculous that someone with millions in assets will receive a relatively small SS payment each month once they turn 70, but if the system had any decision making in it, it would eventually be gutted by those who "only want it to go to the deserving", with all the misty, hoop-jumping etc that you get with welfare assistance. Essentially money is wasted on the wealthy in order to make sure those who really need it get it. Second: "they paid into the system" is deliberate propaganda. We all "pay into the system". Dollars are fungible -- one marked "social security" on your paystub is no different form the one marked "federal income tax" any more than the electrons in your GPU are the same as the ones in the CPU. And we are entitled to the benefits of air traffic control, food safety, schools etc. And in practice the SSN money does work that way: how do you think it's "invested"? It buys government bonds. It's a cumbersome fiction, with rich kabuki elements (I myself appreciate the wasteful "statements" that some idiotic congressman decided should be sent to every recipient). Claiming you paid for it so you were entitled to it was a clever idea. This crazy system arrived because the model people had was private pensions; many people didn't or couldn't invest in them so the Roosevelt administration developed "a pension fund for everyone" in the face of stiff opposition. It was very similar to the difficulty of implementing Obamacare: the whole ludicrous infrastructure was designed to bring insurance companies into the system rather than sit beside them. So SS is much more efficient than Obamacare because the opposition wasn't as effective back in the early 1930s. This whole "you paid for it" scheme has other pathologies as well: the tax is regressive. The people who need it pay a higher proportion of their income than the people who don't. That's just cruel.
- stale2002 10y ago
  The reason why "You paid for it" is a valid argument is that Social Security is explicitly advertised as a forced retirement system. Imagine if you put money into your 401k, and then the government came along and decided that you didn't need that money so they just took it all away from you. Do you believe THAT would be OK? Because if SS is a retirement system, that's effectively what the government would be doing.
ams6110 10y ago
The money you put into SS is used to pay the benefits of the people drawing on it today. Anything left over is loaned to the government (yes an IOU to itself). There is no account with your name on it that holds the dollars that have been taken from you all your life. There is no trust fund. It's a giant pyramid scheme.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  > It's a giant pyramid scheme. No it isn't. > The money you put into SS is used to pay the benefits of the people drawing on it today. That doesn't make it a pyramid scheme.
gnaritas 10y ago
> Can someone please explain why people call Social Security an entitlement? Am I missing something? Because it is. What you're missing is what the word entitlement means. They paid into the system, they are entitled to get those checks, i.e. they have a right to it. Calling it an entitlement is not an insult.

astral303 10y ago

It's language war. Entitlement spending is a great way to negatively frame social security.

jackreichert 10y ago
Well, now I understand why all those pesky employees of mine feel so entitled to getting their paychecks. It must be because they're millennials or something...
- jonwachob91 10y ago
  I'm not certain... My first job as a programmer my boss use to bust my balls and joke that I must not care about getting paid because I often let my checks pile up before asking for them... (and I wasn't exactly flush with cash from another source...)
CajunAlexTrebec 10y ago
To be clear, the money I'm paying into Social Security today is being consumed by current Social Security recipients. It is not being set aside for me to use when I theoretically begin to draw Social Security in the future.

timlyo 10y ago

I'm thinking from the government's perspective. It's still money that is being removed from the treasury that they have to factor into the budgets.

pluma 10y ago

In Germany at least, public retirement funds are "pay-as-you-go", i.e. you don't pay in to save up money for yourself, you pay in to finance the current payouts to other people who previously paid into the system (and so on). Of course nobody treats it that way -- you'll hear a lot of "my pension" talk especially from people close to retirement and those who are unaware of how low their pensions will be a the current rate. Theoretically the system could be justifiably stopped at any second and simply drained by the current pensioners (which would probably happen almost instantly). But good luck explaining that to people raised under the false assumption that the public pensions are "safe" (as politicians like to announce so frequently). Our best bet would probably be "universal basic income for everyone below retirement age" but pensions are "topped up" to parity with basic income. A not-insignificant portion of pensioners already gets pensions below social security levels (meaning it is topped up to social security levels -- not that they get welfare on top). You could then fade out the pension system and replace it with basic income.

Unklejoe 10y ago
Social security works basically the same way in the USA. Once a system like that is in place, it's very hard to stop the pipeline. I honestly don't see the purpose of that type of system either. Why create this pipeline of money anyway? Why not just take the contributions that everyone makes and put them into individual retirement accounts? Assuming the system is stable (which it's probably not), it seems there would be virtually no difference between me paying for the current retirees (and expecting my children to pay for my retirement) vs. me paying into my own retirement. I'm not too familiar with these concepts, so maybe someone will school me.
- adwn 10y ago
  > I honestly don't see the purpose of that type of system either. Why create this pipeline of money anyway? Why not just take the contributions that everyone makes and put them into individual retirement accounts? Because after WWII, there were no retirement accounts in Germany (simplified and not completely correct, but you get the point). Should they have let old people starve?

gumby 10y ago

Yes. The SS system is clever, but it required a lot of sleight of hand to get it into place -- but that approach has kept it alive for 80 years so far. First, SS is universal rather than means tested in order to garner enough support to keep it in place. It's ridiculous that someone with millions in assets will receive a relatively small SS payment each month once they turn 70, but if the system had any decision making in it, it would eventually be gutted by those who "only want it to go to the deserving", with all the misty, hoop-jumping etc that you get with welfare assistance. Essentially money is wasted on the wealthy in order to make sure those who really need it get it. Second: "they paid into the system" is deliberate propaganda. We all "pay into the system". Dollars are fungible -- one marked "social security" on your paystub is no different form the one marked "federal income tax" any more than the electrons in your GPU are the same as the ones in the CPU. And we are entitled to the benefits of air traffic control, food safety, schools etc. And in practice the SSN money does work that way: how do you think it's "invested"? It buys government bonds. It's a cumbersome fiction, with rich kabuki elements (I myself appreciate the wasteful "statements" that some idiotic congressman decided should be sent to every recipient). Claiming you paid for it so you were entitled to it was a clever idea. This crazy system arrived because the model people had was private pensions; many people didn't or couldn't invest in them so the Roosevelt administration developed "a pension fund for everyone" in the face of stiff opposition. It was very similar to the difficulty of implementing Obamacare: the whole ludicrous infrastructure was designed to bring insurance companies into the system rather than sit beside them. So SS is much more efficient than Obamacare because the opposition wasn't as effective back in the early 1930s. This whole "you paid for it" scheme has other pathologies as well: the tax is regressive. The people who need it pay a higher proportion of their income than the people who don't. That's just cruel.

stale2002 10y ago
The reason why "You paid for it" is a valid argument is that Social Security is explicitly advertised as a forced retirement system. Imagine if you put money into your 401k, and then the government came along and decided that you didn't need that money so they just took it all away from you. Do you believe THAT would be OK? Because if SS is a retirement system, that's effectively what the government would be doing.

ams6110 10y ago

The money you put into SS is used to pay the benefits of the people drawing on it today. Anything left over is loaned to the government (yes an IOU to itself). There is no account with your name on it that holds the dollars that have been taken from you all your life. There is no trust fund. It's a giant pyramid scheme.

gnaritas 10y ago
> It's a giant pyramid scheme. No it isn't. > The money you put into SS is used to pay the benefits of the people drawing on it today. That doesn't make it a pyramid scheme.

gnaritas 10y ago

> Can someone please explain why people call Social Security an entitlement? Am I missing something? Because it is. What you're missing is what the word entitlement means. They paid into the system, they are entitled to get those checks, i.e. they have a right to it. Calling it an entitlement is not an insult.