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There Is a Significant Need for Retirement Savings in the US

toomuchtodo 2y ago
This problem is unsolvable, because we don't want to solve it. Social Security is under attack, while keeping 23 million people out of poverty and being one of the most efficient value transfer and benefits system in the world. We don't want to raise taxes to improve funding for it. Wall Street is chomping at the bit to get access to worker retirement funds. Pensions are unpalatable, even though they could be accomplished with Australia's superannuation model, and are necessary for workers to get investment cashflow to obtain exposure and fiduciary management of the investments. The wheels will keep coming off the cart. https://www.gao.gov/financial-security-older-americans https://www.gao.gov/financial-security-older-americans https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-owns-americas-wealth/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-o... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia
- Empact 2y ago
  Should we really be taxing young people more when those young people are not propagating due to high housing costs, etc?
  - GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
    Intentional or not, this is a bad misdirection. Young people do not have enough income to tax. Those making half a million or more can bear a sharp increase in their tax burden.
  - nerdponx 2y ago
    No, but that's the whole point of progressive taxation. The old and wealthy who voted us into this mess should be the ones to pay for the solution.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Social Security only applies to the first ~$176k of your income (inflation adjusted annually). What percentage of young people are at that income level? This is not young vs old, but the median vs the very wealthy. https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Social Security only applies to the first ~$176k of your income. What percentage of young people are at that income level I think they’re saying most young people make less than $176k.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - spankalee 2y ago
    We should directly address high housing costs by allowing housing to be built.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      17-20% fewer construction workers: Great Recession's lasting scar on housing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269017 Insurance and Taxes Now Cost More Than Mortgages for Many Homeowners - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42499267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42499267 It's the land, stupid: How the homebuilder cartel drives high housing prices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41259229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41259229 Like retirement savings, there is no will to directly address this problem.
- jxjnskkzxxhx 2y ago
  "Pensions are unpalatable". You don't have pensions in the USA? Meaning like an account into which you can put pretax money and in exchange you can't take it out until later in your life (but can invest it)?
  - sevensor 2y ago
    We don’t have traditional defined-benefit pensions, or not outside of the public sector.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > We don’t have traditional defined-benefit pensions, or not outside of the public sector. That's a fairly popular belief, but even now (well, as of March 2023), several decades after the general move against them, 15% of private sector workers have access to a defined-benefit pension plan. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/15-percent-of-private-industry-workers-had-access-to-a-defined-benefit-retirement-plan.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/15-percent-of-private-indu...
  - code_runner 2y ago
    we have a concept called a 401k (and for non-profits a 403b). You contribute some % of your paycheck and your employer matches some amount of that (potentially with a vesting schedule) The money can be invested, and then at some age (55.5 i believe?) you can access the money without being taxed. There is a maximum you can contribute per year etc etc. I am not old enough to ever have had a pension option in my entire life, but I believe 401Ks are overall worse, because pensions come w/ some amount of guaranteed payout + someone managing the fund to ensure that happens. a 401K can go to zero, and you can forget to contribute (and most of the money is your own money anyways)
    - jxjnskkzxxhx 2y ago
      The pensions I had in mind (UK) don't have any guaranteed payout and can go to zero. We don't have to have anyone "managing" them, and I for one think that's a good thing.
- lbotos 2y ago
  > Wall Street is chomping at the bit to get access to worker retirement funds. What do you mean by this? My 401k is.... publicly traded stocks? What am I missing?
  - nerdponx 2y ago
    OP is talking about Social Security, not your 401(k).
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Private equity. Only ~4300 US companies are public, so money managers want to juice management fees by expanding accessibility into alternative asset classes. Private equity to lobby Trump for access to savers’ retirement funds - https://www.ft.com/content/dddd1752-789a-40b6-9aa8-d7cf6f408c81 https://www.ft.com/content/dddd1752-789a-40b6-9aa8-d7cf6f408... | https://archive.today/HrDgt https://archive.today/HrDgt The stock market is shrinking and Jamie Dimon is worried - https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/investing/premarket-stocks-tr... Shrinking public markets mean growth in private markets - https://fsinvestments.com/fs-insights/chart-of-the-week-2024-10-4-private-market-growth/ https://fsinvestments.com/fs-insights/chart-of-the-week-2024... Interesting fact: As of the end of 2024, the Magnificent Seven stocks made up 35.4% of the S&P 500's value.
    - nerdponx 2y ago
      I remember when "privatizing social security" was considered a horrifying prospect under the W Bush administration and became unpopular very quickly. I'm not so optimistic this time around.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    He's talking about social security revenue. Obviously, the government is much better at this than your 401k plan even though they pissed away decades of surpluses by buying treasuries with them that would require the government to massively increase future taxes to ever be able to pay those back (let alone with interest). Instead, he would prefer, I suspect, that social security withholdings be increased, taxes increased, all so that 23 million people can continue to receive poverty-level checks of $1950 a month, though you won't be allowed to collect yours until you're 70 or older. Social security doesn't work though, unless there are a dozen workers paying into it for every retiree, and no one's having enough children for that to ever be the case again.
- nerdponx 2y ago
  It's not only social security though. Broadly, wages are too low relative to living expenses, so people can't save on their own. There's probably an argument that social security actually subsidizes low wages, as is often made with Medicaid. That isn't to say that we shouldn't have social security -- it's that it should be funded by corporate profits, shareholder returns, and executive pay.
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    in the USA, most expenses related to raising a family got increasingly expensive, probably because aggressive business models saw that those are "essential" so people will have to pay. That is the logic that got us to plus-fifty percent of household income going to rent and food here in California. The investors in rental units are making a fortune. It is uncontrolled predatory capitalism playing out.
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  The only reason we are in this situation is extreme wealth inequality. And the only way to fix it is to tax the wealthy appropriately. We are currently taxing the young when they already are struggling on every front as compared to the previous generations. This problem will only get worse.
  - BizarroLand 2y ago
    What a just society would do would be to add taxes to the wealthy and raise income for the poor, slowly and gently transferring wealth from the rich to the poor in a way that doesn't destroy the system. The fact that not only are we not doing that but that we are violently opposed to doing that is a fair weather barometer of our current justice quotient.
- marxisttemp 2y ago
  America has been sacrificed at the altar of short-term profit.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > We don't want to raise taxes to improve funding for it Key word: “for it.” We’re apparently fine raising taxes if we just call them tariffs.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    > We’re apparently fine raising taxes if we just call them tariffs. Of course, because the current tariff strategy is intended to be a regressive sales tax targeting the broad populace who is already being extracted from, to avoid income tax increases. Edit: It's also about control it appears. Trump Press Sec Accidentally Blurts Out Real Goal of His Tariff Scam - https://newrepublic.com/article/192391/trump-press-sec-accidentally-reveals-ugly-scam-behind-tariffs https://newrepublic.com/article/192391/trump-press-sec-accid... > Then press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters directly that if Canada wants to avoid tariffs in the future, it should become the fifty-first U.S. state. She revealed it: Trump’s tariffs aren’t about fentanyl or any supposed unfair treatment of the U.S. They’re about forcing Canada, with no justification whatsoever, to submit to his will. https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ljnnnf5hvh23 https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ljnnnf5hvh23
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nine_zeros 2y ago
[flagged]
- chrsig 2y ago
  i don't think they have been for a while.
- nerdponx 2y ago
  > People voted to transfer wealth to the rich, reduce benefits for the masses cut taxes for the rich, scammy corporations, general immunity for the crony rich who are exploiting the government, customers, and employees. Not only that. They also voted for economic structures that make it easier for the wealthy-and-powerful to take advantage of the less-wealthy-and-powerful. Healthcare is tied to your job. Housing costs 40% of take home pay. Worker protections are constantly under attack. Regulatory capture is everywhere. Oligopoly is everywhere; every minor crisis is an excuse to raise prices, which of course never come down, and because the CPI doesn't include wages it gets hand-waved away as "inflation" instead of being correctly identified as declining consumer surplus. Employment is at-will; if you don't keep your head down and dedicate your life to your job, and to making new kids who can dedicate their future lives to their future jobs, there is a nonzero risk of lifelong misery for you and your family. And this time around people went even further. A popular majority eagerly voted for authoritarianism, more or less explicitly in service of breaking down cultural resistance to those economic structures. Most politicians are just trying to grab and hold onto whatever they can before the ship sinks. They only differ in whether they are accelerationists actively trying to sink the ship faster, or denialists allowing it to sink while quietly enjoying their hoard of grabbed stuff and making a weak show of trying to fix things for appearances.
grandempire 2y ago
I think we should revisit the policy of an actual forced savings account - rather than the bad proxies for it: social security, home equity, 401k. The general population is not smart enough to understand a 401k and raids it as soon as they can. The Obama administration was big on the “gentle nudge” policies - so that for example they would enroll you in retirement, but you could opt out, but I don’t think that’s strong enough.
- marxisttemp 2y ago
  All those stupid genpop people raiding their 401ks. Why can’t they be smart like me and have more money so they don’t need to do that?
  - grandempire 2y ago
    Are you suggesting that most cases of accessing a 401k early are prudent and unavoidable?
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  Removing that money from contention over things like housing would be great. As it is, you either save for retirement and send you kids to worse schools than you could if you spent it instead, because other people are choosing to bid up housing rather than save for retirement, or you join them and don't have enough for retirement.
- gnz11 2y ago
  Social Security isn’t a savings or investment program.
  - grandempire 2y ago
    Indeed. It’s some god awful combination of welfare, savings, and insurance. It needs clarification.
  - from-nibly 2y ago
    It's a Rosevelte scheme. (Some people incorrectly call it a Ponzi scheme)
melenaboija 2y ago
The working class in America (specifically the lower segment) is surprisingly opposed to social protections, which is strange considering they live in the wealthiest country in the world while also being the most unprotected among Western democracies. Social protections are something that not even conservative parties in Europe can challenge (at least for now, we’ll see if the US trend spreads there though). As a European who has spent a decade in the US and has always had a speech for expanding the social safety net (and, BTW, I’m on the fortunate side of US society), it seems impossible to me that some people will ever understand this, especially and shockingly, those who need it the most.
- close04 2y ago
  > (specifically the lower segment) is surprisingly opposed to social protections They are already in a weak social position and were taught that asking for any kind of protection or assistance is a bad thing. The last thing you want when society is already looking down on you is give more reasons for it.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > working class in America (specifically the lower segment) is surprisingly opposed to social protections A lot of social protections for them were shams. Worker retraining after signing NAFTA, for example. Unions that turn into hereditary job pools outsiders can’t break into. Hell, public-school taxes for universities they can’t afford because their public-school teachers couldn’t teach their kids math.
  - danans 2y ago
    But many other social protections - the comparatively huge ones - are ones that workers value a lot: Unemployment Insurance, Disability benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. But unfortunately many workers have taken those as a given and therefore untouchable, rather than a societal choice.
  - jmull 2y ago
    I don't really know how to tell you this delicately, but you're in an information bubble. If you have to go reaching back 30 years to a jobs program for an example of a sham social protection program, they are probably in great shape (a jobs training program isn't even really a social protection). I know some unions have nepotism problems with jobs in the union (which is different than union jobs). I wonder if they are particularly worse than other political arenas though, where many value loyalty and control more than merit. And, of course, unions are not social protection programs. They are a response to the lack of social protections. School funding isn't even tangentially related to social protections.
EarlKing 2y ago
There is a significant need for a lower cost of living and wage increases to even entertain the notion of retirement savings first. Get back to me when you solve that problem first.
UltraSane 2y ago
The interest income on money created by fractional reserve banking should be used for this instead of making rich bankers richer.
standardUser 2y ago
Americans will do anything but remove the cap on taxing income over $176k. It's a bizarrely unique American notion that those who can most afford it are given the exemption and the burden falls to those who can least afford it. And that those who profit most from the system are given a pass on having to actually pay for it.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Because the system views the people who need support as disposable. The system doesn't need them.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  Income over $176k is definitely taxed, at progressively higher marginal rates. If you won the lottery you'd lose half of the jackpot to taxes. Only one specific type of tax has a cap, not that the buckets really mean anything. Courts have found that Social Security is not an entitlement, it is a welfare program. You can collect more than you ever paid in, and be denied benefits for arbitrary reasons. However, practically speaking, they treat it like an entitlement in that paying in more money generally increases the amount of your benefits, up to a limit. If people were to be denied benefits on a large scale, then people paying into it might vote to eliminate it.
- csa 2y ago
  > Americans will do anything but remove the cap on taxing income over $176k. Point taken, but just to be clear to folks who aren’t familiar with American taxes, this cap is only for “social security tax” and does not apply to federal income taxes.
vlark 2y ago
In order to save, you need to earn enough to do so. The average salary in the U.S. is $66,622, and the average household income is $80,610. The average housing cost is $2,715 per month, or $32,580 a year. Average food costs for a single person are around $9,000 a year. Average total utility costs are $7,200. Average healthcare costs per person are $14,570. Average car ownership costs are $12,182 per year. These average expenses total $75532 per year, meaning the average single person with an average salary is $8910 in debt. You can do the math for the average two-car household yourself. And we haven't even accounted for taxes. Or the costs of raising a child. Now, admittedly, this average person/average houshold most likely does not exist. But simply looking at averages points out the problem that most people are already stretched financially too thin to stock away something for retirement. Over half the United States population earns less than $100k a year, and the median income for all earners (the middle point, right smack in the middle of all earners of all ages and genders) is roughly $40k. I'm sure all you folks earning over $150k a year with stock options are doing fine, but realize you guys are in the top 20% of income earners in the U.S. whether you feel like you are or not.
- j_w 2y ago
  66k/80k for income sounds like a median, whereas $2,715 sounds like a mean housing cost. A quick search found between $1,500-$2,000 a month for median rent prices. If you adjust for a $1,600 rent, your above person is left with 3k, before considering that all the other expenditures are absolutely insane. Options: - Live in a city, ditch the car. This gives you a $2,600 rent budget under the same other expenses. - Eat less expensive food. $9,000/year (>$8/meal) for food for a single person is high. No takeout. People like to pretend the situation is worse than it is - some people have it bad, but tighten your purse and live less lavishly. Work on getting a better job (if you need to or can), and when you make more money don't increase expenses.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  I think it takes a bit of a mindset shift. If your salary is $X, you can't start your expense plan with how much your apartment costs. There are expenses A. that are ironclad-mandatory, in that you must make them or you're really fucking yourself: Taxes and debt interest are examples. They need to come out of your salary before any other calculations are done. Your actual income (that you can spend) is $X-A. Then you have B. expenses that you have to pay, but you have at least theoretical control of by shopping around, like the cost of your apartment, cars, child care, groceries, and so on. Those come out next. Then, you have C. discretionary spending, everything left over. Often this is zero or negative :( Too many people put retirement savings in bucket C, where it actually should be considered bucket A. It needs to come out before you even consider anything else. Your money left over after taxes, paying interest, AND savings, is what you have left to decide whether you can afford this apartment or that car.
onewheeltom 2y ago
A significant number of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Hard to save without having the $$.
hackburg 2y ago
[dead]

This problem is unsolvable, because we don't want to solve it. Social Security is under attack, while keeping 23 million people out of poverty and being one of the most efficient value transfer and benefits system in the world. We don't want to raise taxes to improve funding for it. Wall Street is chomping at the bit to get access to worker retirement funds. Pensions are unpalatable, even though they could be accomplished with Australia's superannuation model, and are necessary for workers to get investment cashflow to obtain exposure and fiduciary management of the investments. The wheels will keep coming off the cart. https://www.gao.gov/financial-security-older-americans https://www.gao.gov/financial-security-older-americans https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-owns-americas-wealth/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-o... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia

Empact 2y ago
Should we really be taxing young people more when those young people are not propagating due to high housing costs, etc?
- GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
  Intentional or not, this is a bad misdirection. Young people do not have enough income to tax. Those making half a million or more can bear a sharp increase in their tax burden.
- nerdponx 2y ago
  No, but that's the whole point of progressive taxation. The old and wealthy who voted us into this mess should be the ones to pay for the solution.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Social Security only applies to the first ~$176k of your income (inflation adjusted annually). What percentage of young people are at that income level? This is not young vs old, but the median vs the very wealthy. https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Social Security only applies to the first ~$176k of your income. What percentage of young people are at that income level I think they’re saying most young people make less than $176k.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- spankalee 2y ago
  We should directly address high housing costs by allowing housing to be built.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    17-20% fewer construction workers: Great Recession's lasting scar on housing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269017 Insurance and Taxes Now Cost More Than Mortgages for Many Homeowners - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42499267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42499267 It's the land, stupid: How the homebuilder cartel drives high housing prices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41259229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41259229 Like retirement savings, there is no will to directly address this problem.
jxjnskkzxxhx 2y ago
"Pensions are unpalatable". You don't have pensions in the USA? Meaning like an account into which you can put pretax money and in exchange you can't take it out until later in your life (but can invest it)?
- sevensor 2y ago
  We don’t have traditional defined-benefit pensions, or not outside of the public sector.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > We don’t have traditional defined-benefit pensions, or not outside of the public sector. That's a fairly popular belief, but even now (well, as of March 2023), several decades after the general move against them, 15% of private sector workers have access to a defined-benefit pension plan. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/15-percent-of-private-industry-workers-had-access-to-a-defined-benefit-retirement-plan.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/15-percent-of-private-indu...
- code_runner 2y ago
  we have a concept called a 401k (and for non-profits a 403b). You contribute some % of your paycheck and your employer matches some amount of that (potentially with a vesting schedule) The money can be invested, and then at some age (55.5 i believe?) you can access the money without being taxed. There is a maximum you can contribute per year etc etc. I am not old enough to ever have had a pension option in my entire life, but I believe 401Ks are overall worse, because pensions come w/ some amount of guaranteed payout + someone managing the fund to ensure that happens. a 401K can go to zero, and you can forget to contribute (and most of the money is your own money anyways)
  - jxjnskkzxxhx 2y ago
    The pensions I had in mind (UK) don't have any guaranteed payout and can go to zero. We don't have to have anyone "managing" them, and I for one think that's a good thing.
lbotos 2y ago
> Wall Street is chomping at the bit to get access to worker retirement funds. What do you mean by this? My 401k is.... publicly traded stocks? What am I missing?
- nerdponx 2y ago
  OP is talking about Social Security, not your 401(k).
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Private equity. Only ~4300 US companies are public, so money managers want to juice management fees by expanding accessibility into alternative asset classes. Private equity to lobby Trump for access to savers’ retirement funds - https://www.ft.com/content/dddd1752-789a-40b6-9aa8-d7cf6f408c81 https://www.ft.com/content/dddd1752-789a-40b6-9aa8-d7cf6f408... | https://archive.today/HrDgt https://archive.today/HrDgt The stock market is shrinking and Jamie Dimon is worried - https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/investing/premarket-stocks-tr... Shrinking public markets mean growth in private markets - https://fsinvestments.com/fs-insights/chart-of-the-week-2024-10-4-private-market-growth/ https://fsinvestments.com/fs-insights/chart-of-the-week-2024... Interesting fact: As of the end of 2024, the Magnificent Seven stocks made up 35.4% of the S&P 500's value.
  - nerdponx 2y ago
    I remember when "privatizing social security" was considered a horrifying prospect under the W Bush administration and became unpopular very quickly. I'm not so optimistic this time around.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  He's talking about social security revenue. Obviously, the government is much better at this than your 401k plan even though they pissed away decades of surpluses by buying treasuries with them that would require the government to massively increase future taxes to ever be able to pay those back (let alone with interest). Instead, he would prefer, I suspect, that social security withholdings be increased, taxes increased, all so that 23 million people can continue to receive poverty-level checks of $1950 a month, though you won't be allowed to collect yours until you're 70 or older. Social security doesn't work though, unless there are a dozen workers paying into it for every retiree, and no one's having enough children for that to ever be the case again.
nerdponx 2y ago
It's not only social security though. Broadly, wages are too low relative to living expenses, so people can't save on their own. There's probably an argument that social security actually subsidizes low wages, as is often made with Medicaid. That isn't to say that we shouldn't have social security -- it's that it should be funded by corporate profits, shareholder returns, and executive pay.
- mistrial9 2y ago
  in the USA, most expenses related to raising a family got increasingly expensive, probably because aggressive business models saw that those are "essential" so people will have to pay. That is the logic that got us to plus-fifty percent of household income going to rent and food here in California. The investors in rental units are making a fortune. It is uncontrolled predatory capitalism playing out.
darth_avocado 2y ago
The only reason we are in this situation is extreme wealth inequality. And the only way to fix it is to tax the wealthy appropriately. We are currently taxing the young when they already are struggling on every front as compared to the previous generations. This problem will only get worse.
- BizarroLand 2y ago
  What a just society would do would be to add taxes to the wealthy and raise income for the poor, slowly and gently transferring wealth from the rich to the poor in a way that doesn't destroy the system. The fact that not only are we not doing that but that we are violently opposed to doing that is a fair weather barometer of our current justice quotient.
marxisttemp 2y ago
America has been sacrificed at the altar of short-term profit.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> We don't want to raise taxes to improve funding for it Key word: “for it.” We’re apparently fine raising taxes if we just call them tariffs.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  > We’re apparently fine raising taxes if we just call them tariffs. Of course, because the current tariff strategy is intended to be a regressive sales tax targeting the broad populace who is already being extracted from, to avoid income tax increases. Edit: It's also about control it appears. Trump Press Sec Accidentally Blurts Out Real Goal of His Tariff Scam - https://newrepublic.com/article/192391/trump-press-sec-accidentally-reveals-ugly-scam-behind-tariffs https://newrepublic.com/article/192391/trump-press-sec-accid... > Then press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters directly that if Canada wants to avoid tariffs in the future, it should become the fifty-first U.S. state. She revealed it: Trump’s tariffs aren’t about fentanyl or any supposed unfair treatment of the U.S. They’re about forcing Canada, with no justification whatsoever, to submit to his will. https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ljnnnf5hvh23 https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ljnnnf5hvh23

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nine_zeros 2y ago

[flagged]

chrsig 2y ago
i don't think they have been for a while.
nerdponx 2y ago
> People voted to transfer wealth to the rich, reduce benefits for the masses cut taxes for the rich, scammy corporations, general immunity for the crony rich who are exploiting the government, customers, and employees. Not only that. They also voted for economic structures that make it easier for the wealthy-and-powerful to take advantage of the less-wealthy-and-powerful. Healthcare is tied to your job. Housing costs 40% of take home pay. Worker protections are constantly under attack. Regulatory capture is everywhere. Oligopoly is everywhere; every minor crisis is an excuse to raise prices, which of course never come down, and because the CPI doesn't include wages it gets hand-waved away as "inflation" instead of being correctly identified as declining consumer surplus. Employment is at-will; if you don't keep your head down and dedicate your life to your job, and to making new kids who can dedicate their future lives to their future jobs, there is a nonzero risk of lifelong misery for you and your family. And this time around people went even further. A popular majority eagerly voted for authoritarianism, more or less explicitly in service of breaking down cultural resistance to those economic structures. Most politicians are just trying to grab and hold onto whatever they can before the ship sinks. They only differ in whether they are accelerationists actively trying to sink the ship faster, or denialists allowing it to sink while quietly enjoying their hoard of grabbed stuff and making a weak show of trying to fix things for appearances.

grandempire 2y ago

I think we should revisit the policy of an actual forced savings account - rather than the bad proxies for it: social security, home equity, 401k. The general population is not smart enough to understand a 401k and raids it as soon as they can. The Obama administration was big on the “gentle nudge” policies - so that for example they would enroll you in retirement, but you could opt out, but I don’t think that’s strong enough.

marxisttemp 2y ago
All those stupid genpop people raiding their 401ks. Why can’t they be smart like me and have more money so they don’t need to do that?
- grandempire 2y ago
  Are you suggesting that most cases of accessing a 401k early are prudent and unavoidable?
alabastervlog 2y ago
Removing that money from contention over things like housing would be great. As it is, you either save for retirement and send you kids to worse schools than you could if you spent it instead, because other people are choosing to bid up housing rather than save for retirement, or you join them and don't have enough for retirement.
gnz11 2y ago
Social Security isn’t a savings or investment program.
- grandempire 2y ago
  Indeed. It’s some god awful combination of welfare, savings, and insurance. It needs clarification.
- from-nibly 2y ago
  It's a Rosevelte scheme. (Some people incorrectly call it a Ponzi scheme)

melenaboija 2y ago

The working class in America (specifically the lower segment) is surprisingly opposed to social protections, which is strange considering they live in the wealthiest country in the world while also being the most unprotected among Western democracies. Social protections are something that not even conservative parties in Europe can challenge (at least for now, we’ll see if the US trend spreads there though). As a European who has spent a decade in the US and has always had a speech for expanding the social safety net (and, BTW, I’m on the fortunate side of US society), it seems impossible to me that some people will ever understand this, especially and shockingly, those who need it the most.

close04 2y ago
> (specifically the lower segment) is surprisingly opposed to social protections They are already in a weak social position and were taught that asking for any kind of protection or assistance is a bad thing. The last thing you want when society is already looking down on you is give more reasons for it.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> working class in America (specifically the lower segment) is surprisingly opposed to social protections A lot of social protections for them were shams. Worker retraining after signing NAFTA, for example. Unions that turn into hereditary job pools outsiders can’t break into. Hell, public-school taxes for universities they can’t afford because their public-school teachers couldn’t teach their kids math.
- danans 2y ago
  But many other social protections - the comparatively huge ones - are ones that workers value a lot: Unemployment Insurance, Disability benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. But unfortunately many workers have taken those as a given and therefore untouchable, rather than a societal choice.
- jmull 2y ago
  I don't really know how to tell you this delicately, but you're in an information bubble. If you have to go reaching back 30 years to a jobs program for an example of a sham social protection program, they are probably in great shape (a jobs training program isn't even really a social protection). I know some unions have nepotism problems with jobs in the union (which is different than union jobs). I wonder if they are particularly worse than other political arenas though, where many value loyalty and control more than merit. And, of course, unions are not social protection programs. They are a response to the lack of social protections. School funding isn't even tangentially related to social protections.

EarlKing 2y ago

There is a significant need for a lower cost of living and wage increases to even entertain the notion of retirement savings first. Get back to me when you solve that problem first.

UltraSane 2y ago

The interest income on money created by fractional reserve banking should be used for this instead of making rich bankers richer.

standardUser 2y ago

Americans will do anything but remove the cap on taxing income over $176k. It's a bizarrely unique American notion that those who can most afford it are given the exemption and the burden falls to those who can least afford it. And that those who profit most from the system are given a pass on having to actually pay for it.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
Because the system views the people who need support as disposable. The system doesn't need them.
wakawaka28 2y ago
Income over $176k is definitely taxed, at progressively higher marginal rates. If you won the lottery you'd lose half of the jackpot to taxes. Only one specific type of tax has a cap, not that the buckets really mean anything. Courts have found that Social Security is not an entitlement, it is a welfare program. You can collect more than you ever paid in, and be denied benefits for arbitrary reasons. However, practically speaking, they treat it like an entitlement in that paying in more money generally increases the amount of your benefits, up to a limit. If people were to be denied benefits on a large scale, then people paying into it might vote to eliminate it.
csa 2y ago
> Americans will do anything but remove the cap on taxing income over $176k. Point taken, but just to be clear to folks who aren’t familiar with American taxes, this cap is only for “social security tax” and does not apply to federal income taxes.

vlark 2y ago

In order to save, you need to earn enough to do so. The average salary in the U.S. is $66,622, and the average household income is $80,610. The average housing cost is $2,715 per month, or $32,580 a year. Average food costs for a single person are around $9,000 a year. Average total utility costs are $7,200. Average healthcare costs per person are $14,570. Average car ownership costs are $12,182 per year. These average expenses total $75532 per year, meaning the average single person with an average salary is $8910 in debt. You can do the math for the average two-car household yourself. And we haven't even accounted for taxes. Or the costs of raising a child. Now, admittedly, this average person/average houshold most likely does not exist. But simply looking at averages points out the problem that most people are already stretched financially too thin to stock away something for retirement. Over half the United States population earns less than $100k a year, and the median income for all earners (the middle point, right smack in the middle of all earners of all ages and genders) is roughly $40k. I'm sure all you folks earning over $150k a year with stock options are doing fine, but realize you guys are in the top 20% of income earners in the U.S. whether you feel like you are or not.

j_w 2y ago
66k/80k for income sounds like a median, whereas $2,715 sounds like a mean housing cost. A quick search found between $1,500-$2,000 a month for median rent prices. If you adjust for a $1,600 rent, your above person is left with 3k, before considering that all the other expenditures are absolutely insane. Options: - Live in a city, ditch the car. This gives you a $2,600 rent budget under the same other expenses. - Eat less expensive food. $9,000/year (>$8/meal) for food for a single person is high. No takeout. People like to pretend the situation is worse than it is - some people have it bad, but tighten your purse and live less lavishly. Work on getting a better job (if you need to or can), and when you make more money don't increase expenses.
ryandrake 2y ago
I think it takes a bit of a mindset shift. If your salary is $X, you can't start your expense plan with how much your apartment costs. There are expenses A. that are ironclad-mandatory, in that you must make them or you're really fucking yourself: Taxes and debt interest are examples. They need to come out of your salary before any other calculations are done. Your actual income (that you can spend) is $X-A. Then you have B. expenses that you have to pay, but you have at least theoretical control of by shopping around, like the cost of your apartment, cars, child care, groceries, and so on. Those come out next. Then, you have C. discretionary spending, everything left over. Often this is zero or negative :( Too many people put retirement savings in bucket C, where it actually should be considered bucket A. It needs to come out before you even consider anything else. Your money left over after taxes, paying interest, AND savings, is what you have left to decide whether you can afford this apartment or that car.

onewheeltom 2y ago

A significant number of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Hard to save without having the $$.

hackburg 2y ago

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