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I think you may have some misconceptions about social security. It's funded by your kids. It's almost like a pyramid scheme, but not quite. It's a common mis

I think you may have some misconceptions about social security. It's funded by your kids. It's almost like a pyramid scheme, but not quite. It's a common misconception that the money you get is actually like some sort of direct investment that is stored or whatever from what you pay in. Actually what you pay in is going, amongst other places, straight to your retired parents and their kin. When nobody has kids social security just dies. You get, in value, basically nothing for your retirement. Maybe some money is left but even then all you can buy with it is whatever is still being produced (very little if everybody is old) or already stored. Raising children is the single biggest investment/contribution in social security, and compared to someone who doesn't do that you basically start in the hole a six figure sum in the social security piggybank. >Not how much your children pay into the system I'm sorry but this is 100% incorrect. If our children don't pay into the system we get nothing. Social security is almost ENTIRELY dependent on how much our children pay into the system. >It doesn't cost poor people anywhere near $250k - $500k to raise a child though. This may be a median price to raise a child, but this median includes money spent by the upper middle class on their children along with genuinely wealthy families. Not to be snarky but I don't think you understand what median means. Upper crust wealthy, by definition, are not included in the median. Median would be the 50th percentile spender in effect. If you want to argue that those who vote for or against immigration should be suitably adjusted, I think that is a seperate question than adjustment for raising the tax engines.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
Damn it. I meant to write "mean", not "median". I know how the SS scheme works. But the money does not come from those who pay in afterward. It comes printed from the government. The money paid in by those who pay in afterward merely keeps the books somewhat balanced and inflation in check. As long as people and corporations are producing sufficient quantities of services and products for the general economy the SS tax could be abandoned without causing a problem for inflation or the ability of the already retired to afford those goods and services. The argument in favor of seeing children as a net benefit to current retirees is that more children = more people to keep the economy running and to function as caregivers for those retirees.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago

Damn it. I meant to write "mean", not "median". I know how the SS scheme works. But the money does not come from those who pay in afterward. It comes printed from the government. The money paid in by those who pay in afterward merely keeps the books somewhat balanced and inflation in check. As long as people and corporations are producing sufficient quantities of services and products for the general economy the SS tax could be abandoned without causing a problem for inflation or the ability of the already retired to afford those goods and services. The argument in favor of seeing children as a net benefit to current retirees is that more children = more people to keep the economy running and to function as caregivers for those retirees.