They should be. Couples that decide not to have children are willfully choosing not to participate in the pyramid scheme that is our entitlement programs. Personally I believe that if you’re able to have children and make the choice not to, you should forfeit any claim to social security and medicare/medicaid…for starters.
^only if those forfeiting also are excused from contributing during their working years??
Hey buddy, have a nice day.
STL being mean?
^No, I’m just in no mood for his bullshit today.
What should happen is that social security funds should be sectioned into a fund that is independent from general spending, and benefits should be paid from that fund. You already paid social security tax, so you should get a benefit. It shouldn’t be dependent on unknown future revenue.
I’m sorry. Moving forward I will be sure to check myself before I wreck myself.
I’d go further and say it should be individual accounts, same as 401 k
But then it wouldn’t be a pyramid scheme (ponzi is probably a more accurate description). FWIW, I have long operated under the assumption that Social Security will collapse before I am eligible to collect. My parents collect it though and I know my contributions (along with all of yours) are needed to fund their benefits though, so I’m okay contributing and likely never getting anything back.
Ideally yes, but with the current system, high contributors do not receive the same ratio of benefits to their tax. So, the government needs to slush together the accounts at some point.
But if that had happened, how would Bill Clinton have “balanced” the budget?
The likelihood of people who pay into the SS system never seeing anything is infinitesimal. It would be political suicide, which is how FDR designed it. They should raise the age though.
It is crazy that over half the budget is Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. USG is basically the worlds biggest insurance company.
I am with you but I wish my parents were getting at least half the amount I am contributing…
But how do you manage that kind of portfolio? Do you benefit older folks by having more conservative allocation or young people by going aggressive?
At the stroke of midnight tonight, I’ll be exactly 20 years from the current SS full retirement age. If all goes as planned, I will have a fairly comfortable nest egg to retire on. Given the percentage of the population that current Millennials will represent in 20 years, it will be political suicide to not come after me, and other “rich” people, with pitchforks, let alone take SS away from us.
Individual investor risk is not a factor in social security investments, since the system averages returns over millions of participants. So, like insurance companies, social security only cares about the time distribution of liabilities and can treat the pool as a single large obligation.
The thing is though, it is politically much worse to take away a benefit than to increase a tax slightly to continue to fund those benefits. That’s why, for instance, the GOP is struggling with Obamacare repeal; it is really hard to regress a subsidy that people believe they are entitled to, even if it would have been easy to deny that subsidy in the first place. Plus, the way to unbundle your benefit as a “rich” person is to just make taxes more progressive.
Happy birthday Higg!!!
So you are retiring at 50? 
And with just a bit of light trolling, I’ve completely derailed this thread. Someone commenting about nazis coming in 3…2…