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Every year I get an $800/month raise in September because the feds stop taking social security out of my paycheck once I have earned a certain amount. It makes
by jml78 6y ago
Every year I get an $800/month raise in September because the feds stop taking social security out of my paycheck once I have earned a certain amount.
It makes zero sense. Eliminate that one thing and it would be the single largest tax increase in history. That tells me that people making $150k/year or more can live without being social security tax free every year after earning X amount
- linuxftw 6y agoSocial Security retirement distributions are related to how much you pay in. Thus the limit. You're allegedly paying for your own retirement.
- michaelmrose 6y agoSince in reality you are paying for grandmas house and medicine and there are more of them now and will get proportionally more tomorrow I suggest we simply do away with that polite fiction.
- linuxftw 6y agoNo argument here, but before social security was used as the general welfare fund, it was a relatively balanced budget. Of course, it was just an inflation mechanism, the government bought it's own securities (treasuries) as 'investments' for social security. Similar to how the UAW pension was stuff full of unsecured bonds from GM, and they went crying to the government for a handout after decades of idiot-level decision making.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> No argument here, but before social security was used as the general welfare fund, it was a relatively balanced budget. Social Security has never been used as the general welfare fund, and it has better budget balance when there wasn't a large demographic bulge in retirement age. Because, duh.
- panzagl 6y agoI guess it depends on how you define 'general welfare fund', but a lot more people draw from Social Security than retirees, usually through disability of some sort.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> but a lot more people draw from Social Security than retirees, usually through disability of some sort. There are exactly 3 ways to get Social Security: retirement, survivorship, and disability. The first two were part of the original implementation, the last was added in 1956. Whether or not you consider adding disability benefits (which have a separate trust fund) to have transformed SS into a “general welfare” fund, the addition of retirement benefits doesn’t correlate with SS’s troubles, but Boomers reaching advanced age does. The Disability Insurance trust fund is actually projected to be solvent for 31 years longer than the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund (2065 vs. 2034), so it's weird to blame it for the problems.
- tunesmith 6y agoI forget where I saw the math, but I think if you remove the limit and the cap on benefits (so the principle of paying your own way remains), it still improves the health of the Social Security system. Would love to know if that's correct if anyone's found the actual math.
- MyNameIsMyName 6y agoIt's a bit of a fallacy to say distribution is related to how much you pay in. It will take very little time for you to receive more in social security benefits than you ever pay in.