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The US gives social security to nearly everyone, including people who "don't need it". This was intentional. The idea being it's harder to take away a benefit
by patrickthebold 8y ago
The US gives social security to nearly everyone, including people who "don't need it".
This was intentional. The idea being it's harder to take away a benefit that everyone enjoys, and fairly easy to take away benefits solely for "the poor".
- briandear 8y agoThe US doesn’t “give” it to nearly everyone — you get a benefit as a proportion of your contribution. If you never contribute to social security, you don’t get the benefit.
- spacehome 8y agoIt's not directly proportional. Low lifetime earners get proportionally more back than high lifetime earners. It has the effect of a wealth transfer from high earners to low earners.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> The US doesn’t “give” it to nearly everyone — you get a benefit as a proportion of your contribution. It's not proportional to even the wage-indexed total of contributions, because of bend points. (And because it's actually based on qualifying wages, not contributions, and the relationship between the two has not been constant over time.)