Social Security: Welfare or Retirement?

[Elwar]

Welfare: We pay taxes our whole lives and if we ever drop to a low enough income level, we get a welfare check every month.

Social Security: We pay taxes our whole lives and if we reach a certain age, we get a social security check every month.

Sure, they tell us that we're paying for our retirement through our social security taxes, but it's just lumped together with all other taxes to pay for things.

So basically we pay high taxes our whole lives and we expect welfare when we reach a certain age.

But all the taxes have been spent. Current social security checks are coming from the same pot as the welfare checks.

How is Social Security any different than welfare?

Is Social Security Welfare or Retirement savings?

[Meatwasp]

I don't consider ss welfare. We were forced to pay for it so heck it is ours.

[Toureg89]

its a little bit of both.

welfare is the taking from one to give to another, usually by force.

retirement is one taking from oneself, and saving for later, usually through consent.

social security if the forcefully taking from all to put in a slushfund saved for later (thats what is was SUPPOSED to be, before it was raided. now SS only exists by the taking from others).

although everyone contributed to it, i'm sure:
-not everyone contributed to it equally
-not everyone uses only the contributions they put in (lets say you contributed 100K$, you get 12K$ a year upon reaching 65 [or is it 68?], but you live another 20 years [and use 240K$ in SS revenue, which is 140K$ more than you contributed])
-not every gets to use their keep their excess contributions upon death (lets say a weathly guy contributes 100K$, but kicks the bucket a year before he can receive benefits. now his contributions are kept by the government, and not relinquished to deceased relatives like the deceased might have like)

the last 3 characteristics are characteristics of a welfare system: some benefitting more than others because of government redistributive policies.

[erowe1]

It is welfare.

It's not like you loan the government money and they pay it back to you. If you retire now, then what you paid them in the past was to pay for the benefits of people on SS then, and what they pay you today is what they get from current taxpayers.

In fact, one of the biggest reasons the AARP resists using means testing to cut the cost of SS is that once they take that step, every pretense of SS as something other than welfare will disappear.

[fisharmor]

Ponzi Scheme.

[LibertyEagle]

Elwar, when it was started, the money was to be put in a Social Security Trust Fund, where it was to earn interest and paid out when those people retired. See, the idea was that we were too stupid to save for our own retirement. :rolleyes: I remember my parents hated it and referred to it as a Social Security TAX. They could see the writing on the wall.

And then, government did what government always does, it looted the social sec trust fund and moved the money into the general fund and spent it.

So, yeah, I can see why people who were forced to hand their money over to such a trust fund for years, would expect to get it back. But, everything has to be on the table now. One thing is for sure though, before they end Social Security for those currently on it, not one more dime of foreign aid should be given, not one more pork project should be funded, not one more dime spent on bailouts, all unconstitutional departments should be abolished, all unconstitutional, aggressive wars should be immediately ended and the troops be brought back home and all federal bureaucrats should have their pensions abolished and salaries cut in half, then &^%^&*@$. :)

[LibertyEagle]

Ponzi Scheme.

It is now, yes. But, that is not the way it was originally set up.

People were stupid to trust the government with their money. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[Toureg89]

It's not like you loan the government money and they pay it back to you. If you retire now, then what you paid them in the past was to pay for the benefits of people on SS then, and what they pay you today is what they get from current taxpayers.
exactly. just because you pay in to it doesnt mean its retirement, because you are paying for PAST GENERATIONS retirement.

this is the welfare aspect of it.

[TonySutton]

Social Security presents a moral hazard. People think it will provide for them in retirement but at best it barely meets their needs. Because it exists people do not properly prepare for a day when they can retire.

Once I realized this I started paying off my debts and worked out a plan to downsize so I can survive well on a minimum of income.

[aravoth]

It is welfare. Government enforced welfare.

And whether or not you believe that you have paid into it is irrelevant. The reality is that SS is funded by bonds, not your paycheck.

Secondly. No one in my generation will ever be able to use it. Ever. But all of us are forced to pay into it. Want the definition of Bullshit? There it is.

These days, half the people paying into social security in my generation can't even afford to pay for their own retirement, yet we're forced to pay for someone elses?

Fuck that.

[cswake]

It originally was a true, voluntary, retirement mechanism that was fully-funded (money invested and collecting interest). Only a couple years later the politicians started to "improve" it and have been "improving" it ever since.

Now it is a mandatory pay-as-you-go system (aka. ponzi scheme) that facilitates income redistribution both by class and by generation. There is general agreement that the inter-generational income transfer is there (take from the young and give to the old), but there actually is disagreement whether the upper class or lower class benefit more. In both cases the middle class loses out.

The fact it is pay-as-you-go means that it no longer is a retirement fund since the money isn't there, just a future obligation of some unlucky American to pay for you. All that remains is welfare for the rich or poor.

[Koz]

SS is welfare

[heavenlyboy34]

I agree that it is welfare. I've heard accounts from people who were alive when SS came into existence. They wouldn't accept it, and even tried to send the money back, but they couldn't make the welfare stop. It's a fucked up system that needs to end (and likely will at some point).

[Brian4Liberty]

Interesting topic. I have been thinking for a while that one way to help get us out of the SS hole is to create a new voluntary program to easily opt-out of receiving SS benefits, for people who are wealthy and don't need it. We can call it the "Patriot Program". :rolleyes: There's some irony there, but it could be considered Patriotic, like buying war bonds in WWII.

Details I am thinking about:

- Some kind of nice introduction setting it up as a way for persons who have been lucky enough to thrive and have no need for government handouts to be Patriotic.
- Absolutely Voluntary.
- List of "Opt-out Patriots" to be published on a government website as a source of pride. Also lists by States, Cities, Counties, Towns to create a type of informal competition. Each person who opts-out will have an option to use their real name, an alias or "anonymous".
- Easily revocable to opt back in at any time.
- Make it an impeachable and criminal act to use "voluntary benefit opt-out information or lists" in any other government program such as, but not limited to, "means testing".

Anything missing?

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

I don't consider ss welfare. We were forced to pay for it so heck it is ours.

We are forced to pay for Medicare. Are you saying that Medicare and Medicaid, etc. aren't welfare?

SS is while being welfare, also a ponzi scheme. It was built on the assumption that there would be more workers (the bottom of the pyramid), than there would be those on retirement (top of pyramid). SS cannot function without enough workers to pay for those currently on it. If those paying taxes stopped paying for SS right now SS would be bankrupt. There is no 'fund'. YOU pay for THEIR retirement. It is welfare for the oldies.

[Elwar]

I don't consider ss welfare. We were forced to pay for it so heck it is ours.

We're forced to pay income taxes as well...

It's just another tax.

[RokiLothbard]

Welfare glued to a regressive income tax.

[LibertyEagle]

We are forced to pay for Medicare. Are you saying that Medicare and Medicaid, etc. aren't welfare?

SS is while being welfare, also a ponzi scheme. It was built on the assumption that there would be more workers (the bottom of the pyramid), than there would be those on retirement (top of pyramid). SS cannot function without enough workers to pay for those currently on it. If those paying taxes stopped paying for SS right now SS would be bankrupt. There is no 'fund'. YOU pay for THEIR retirement. It is welfare for the oldies.

No. That is not what it was when it was first established. That is why the called it the Social Security TRUST FUND.

It certainly is a ponzi scheme now though.

[Meatwasp]

We are forced to pay for Medicare. Are you saying that Medicare and Medicaid, etc. aren't welfare?

SS is while being welfare, also a ponzi scheme. It was built on the assumption that there would be more workers (the bottom of the pyramid), than there would be those on retirement (top of pyramid). SS cannot function without enough workers to pay for those currently on it. If those paying taxes stopped paying for SS right now SS would be bankrupt. There is no 'fund'. YOU pay for THEIR retirement. It is welfare for the oldies..
I had to choose between his checks, when he died, or mine. They would not give me both, even though I paid into it since I was 16. I choose his because it was more. He died one month after he got his first check.

[low preference guy]

Welfare or Retirement?

SS is a Ponzi Scheme soon to go bust, and the only way to give it more life would be to implement means testing and give money only to those who truly need it, i.e., to make it a welfare program.