OBAMA, CONGRESS REMAIN CLUELESS ABOUT THE INEVITABILITY OF THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM; REDUCING PAYMENTS INTO THE SYSTEM

How is it possible that Obama " the Clueless " ( that is his name if we named our Presidents like the kings of old ), has continued to propose a 50% reduction on the amount that is paid into the Social Security program through his suggestion of the reduction of the tax paid by employees, while saying it is insolvent?

Has any member of Congress yet noticed this hypocrisy?

The system is broke and Obama,this financial novice, is suggesting an even smaller paying into the system by reducing the amount that is paid in???

The system allows the payments to not just retirees which is what most people think, but this Social Security "TRUST FUND" has been raided to pay for all sorts of things including disabilities of anyone over 18 years old, and a host of other non-retirement related expenses.

Additionally, since the "fund" in never invested into anything but the lowest yielding TREASURY BONDS, its funds never really grows like they could or would though investments into privately managed retirement pensions offered routinely by insurance companies and private employers.

Best is to note how UPS left the TEAMSTER failed retirement fund to offer employees a better plan on its own, as way better than anything from Social security that they will also receive.

The program was never designed to be a long term retirement plan. When the SS program was started the average age till the death of a typical recipient was just a few years...( remember how 80% of the population smoked and died early back then?)... in 1945 there were about 45 workers paying into the system for every retired person who was collecting benefits...today there are only 1.75 people paying in for everyone receiving some sort of benefit!!! This is unsustainable.

To make my point further, due to the longevity of retirees now, the system as set up could not support the payments into the future due to the small amount that is paid in by the beneficiaries versus what they get in benefits.

My now deceased dear father is a perfect illustration of that deficiency.

He retired at age 62 and took the smaller benefit due to starting it at 62. He lived till age 94, and thus collected benefits for 32 years, versus the 3 or 4 that was the prediction when the system was inaugurated.

The estimated benefits he collected totaled approximately $270,000, while he paid in approximately $9,000, plus another $9,000 by his employer; $18,000 total. How is this system sustainable?

Labor Dept. Data: Only 1.75 Full-Time Private Sector Workers Per Social Security Recipient
By Terence P. Jeffrey

(CNSNews.com) - There were only 1.75 full-time private-sector workers in the United States last year for each person receiving benefits from Social Security, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Social Security board of trustees.

That means that for each husband and wife who worked full-time in the private sector last year there was a Social Security recipient somewhere in the country taking benefits from the federal government.

Most state and local workers are part of the Social Security system and pay Social Security taxes; and, since 1984, all federal workers have been part of the system and pay Social Security taxes. However, unlike private sector workers who pay Social Security taxes with private-sector dollars, government workers pay their payroll taxes out of wages government pays them with tax dollars or with money that was borrowed by government and taxpayers must eventually repay.

In its latest annual report, the Social Security board of trustees reported that the federal government’s total revenue from Social Security taxes in 2010—$544.8 billion—was not enough to cover Social Security’s total benefit payments—$577.4 billion.

The board of trustees also reported that there were 156.725 million “covered workers” in the United States who paid some Social Security taxes during 2010. But these 156.725 million “covered workers” included all workers—including government workers—who were “paid at some time during the year for employment” on which Social Security taxes were due. People who worked full-time for 52 weeks during the year were included with people who worked only part-time for a month.

The Social Security board of trustees reported that there were 53.398 million Social Security beneficiaries in 2010.

That meant, as the Social Security board of trustees reported, that there were just 2.9 “covered workers” who paid some Social Security taxes in 2010 for each individual who received Social Security benefits.

(According to the Social Security board of trustees, there were 41.9 "covered workers" per Social Security beneficiary in 1945.)

However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has generated data indicating how many full-time workers there were in the country in 2010 and how many of these worked in government as opposed to the private sector.

According to BLS, there were 111.714 million full-time workers in the United States last year. Of these, 18.073 million worked for local, state or federal government, and 93.641 million worked in the private sector.

The 93.641 million full-time private sector workers last year worked out to 1.75 for each person receiving Social Security benefits.

These 93.641 million full-time private sector workers were the foundation of the tax base that supported both government at large and Social Security in particular.

Prior to 1983, states and localities could legally opt their employees out of the Social Security system. In 1981, for example, the employees of Galveston County, Texas, voted 78 percent to 22 percent to opt out of the Social Security system for a locally run retirement plan. Brazoria and Matagorda counties in Texas also opted out of Social Security.

COMMENTS:

Tom21773
I won't be collecting SS for another few years, but I know I will be depending on it because I always knew I could depend on it. I put my share into it for over 30 years. It's MY money. If they want to cancel SS because it's an entitlement, then give me all my money back. An obvious solution to me is to create a "progressive" paycheck withholding system - the more "progressive" you are, the higher the percentage of SS and Medicare tax taken from your check. Spread the wealth, idiots. ;~}

Donny from Indy
The USA will crumble in 2030.

Reggie
I see lawyers constantly on TV saying they will help people get SS disability. That needs to go away. No SS until you are old enough. This idea that you can collect it in your twenties if you have a mental disorder is absurd. If that be the case then all of our politician, judges and lawyers and the gestapo (cops) should be on SS because they are all mental and on a power trip.

Seaknight9
I would like to know who the 1.75 people are that are paying my SS, I would like to encourage them -- keep them happy and motivated.

skeptical1
About 38% of people collecting never paid in. It's not just retirees collecting. Kids in special ed were not part of the original idea of social security.

MichaelGreen831
Folks, you can take the liberal line, or you can take the conservative line. Feel free to talk about the "ponzi" scheme, or go right on and talk about the seniors who would be "literally dying in the streets" without SS. Go ahead.

Of course, you'll all be missing the critical piece of information. In 1945 there were 41.9 covered workers and today there are only 2.9. Unless there is a wide fluctuation in data from year to year, you're looking at Al Gore's "hockey stick" being applied to how SS is going to be paid for. The money used to come almost entirely from workers in the civilian workforce and load was spread around so that you only had to carry 1/42nd of a SSN recipient. Today you are carrying 7/8ths. Tomorrow you will carry 8/8ths (one entire SSN recipient. After that, you'll carry 2. It only gets worse.

You can be a liberal and defend SSN if you like, but you may as well take the position at low tide that you don't think you should have to get wet at high tide.
Tony Moreno and 10 more liked this

Albarrs n reply to MichaelGreen831
Spot on Michael! I can not believe the power Obama has over even the Republicans. What has already occurred is that senior's annual SS cost of living raises have been stopped by Congress and the President, including Republicans. We seniors depended on that cost of living to partially offset the annual monthly premium raises in the Medicare monthly premium costs for each SS retiree. That Medicare premium raise comes directly out of senior's SS checks and it continued to go up even though our SS cost of living has been stopped by fiddling with the date to make it come out like the bureaucrats and corrupt politicians wanted it to! That's double dipping by the U.S. Government into our SS funds. Now Obama has the Republicans going cheerfully along with his continued attack and genocide of American seniors with his 50+% reduction in Payroll Tax collections. Now they want to cheerfully continue that SS and Medicare funding devastating policy. Don't Republicans understand that this is another tactic by Obama to further degrade senior citizens and hasten the bankruptcy of SS and the stress and deaths of uncountable numbers of seniors who depend on SS and Medicare? All this caused by politicians that has resulted in a continuing rise of the cost of all good and services senior citizens need to live self sufficiently. Why aren't Republicans fighting for a reduction in Corporate Taxes and leave the Payroll Tax collection in place. I just saw this morning that there are only 1.75 workers paying, when they have too, into the SS and Medicare "trust funds". Now and probably into the near future there will be ZERO workers paying into the SS and Medicare funds as we seniors did during our 40 to 50 year work careers. Why do the Republicans, of all people, fail to understand basic economics 101 when it comes to senior citizen's well being during their waning years on Earth? Reducing corporate taxes would do the same thing for companies since no company pays taxes, they just pass the cost through to their customers...so why continue the stress and genocide against American's seniors, our most productive generation, who gave this generation
the great economy and luxuries during their tenure at the wheel of the American economy. It isn't senior retirees who squandered what we seniors have given America in times of peace and war...


Mark L from NJ
No one is suggesting eliminating it! How about privatizing it so that the politicians cannot take the money out of the "trust fund" and spend it on other things? Force us to contribute to it, like we do now, have the employer match it, like they do now, and keep a PRIVATE account that only the owner of can touch it. If the government would have kept the money in these all these years, then we wouldn't have this problem now.

Amelia1964
Sorry, Kids. A word from a Senior.
I'm 65 and I am on S.S. currently. Up until my birthday I was paying for my own health care, about $260 a month, but it had a $5000 deductible, that I would be responsible for each year if I was ill or had an accident. In June, before my birthday, I get the , "greeting from Medicare" letter, telling me that I would automatically be enrolled in Medicare when I turned 65. So here was the situation I was forced with, enroll now, or wait and have to pay all kinds of penalties. And of course with the Feds, you never know what that might be. So I signed up. It is better than the $5000 deductible plan I had, but what I really hate about all this stuff the government has done to help, eventually leads to people thinking they are entitled to get the best of health care. Every senior I talk to says something like this: "They pay for EVERYTHING". No, that is not the right way to look at this. Sorry.
My sis is a doctor,67, and she works 12 hour days, 7 days a week, and the Medicare reimbursement for her time is constantly going down. But what isn't going down but up is the cost of regulating all this through the Federal Government. Indeed that seems to be growing more and more every year. So while Seniors can look at medicare and be scared that it will change, or what ever, they fall to see what it really costs the providers. And in reality, they don't care. That really pisses me off.
Now the reason I bring Medicare up is because like S.S. you don't have a choice.
Well, that is not really true, I did have a choice, but it wasn't clear what from the government side that choice would look like. They just need you to start paying into the system through part B, which is deducted from you S.S., then you still have to find a Supplemental. Don't worry, you'll understand when you get there.
Anyway, my complaint is that you have no really good choices.There are no Medical self-control IRAs, or retirement account you can put part of your wages in cause the government takes it. You live in America, and this is the plan. Oddly this is like the situation of slavery in this country years ago. I wasn't around when is occurred, don't feel responsible for it today, but certainly glad it not longer exists in America, and likewise I wasn't voting when S.S. or Medicare were enacted. But since I am alive today I do have a choice to say, "fix this Mess" because, no matter how good the service for the current recipients, it is going to be devastating for the future generations in this country.
So please, instead of kicking seniors for getting services for which the paid into, realize that a lot of us know how bad this is, and please look for candidates who will not just talk about the problem, but have real proposals for fixing it.

Very Old B in reply to Amelia1964
Thanks for highlighting some of the problems endemic to Medicare. I'd like to pick up on your point that "what I really hate about all this stuff the government has done to help, eventually leads to people thinking they are entitled to get the best of health care."

Often this leads to seniors having expensive elective surgeries (for example, joint replacements) that lead to complications requiring extended hospitalization, then nursing home admissions, and perhaps early death. Just because modern medicine can do something for you there is no guarantee that it will produce improved quality of life.

I'm not "kicking seniors for getting services" but I've had recent enough experience with the system to recognize the conflicts between practicing medicine with human decency, the profit motive, and government largess.

Albarrs in reply to Amelia1964
Follow up to Amelia... My wife and I are 73. We retired in FEB 1997 and have not received a raise in income except for the meager SS cost of living raises which have now been stopped by federal bureaucrats and politicians fiddling with the national economic data specifically to stop making SS cost of living raises. Our SS check gets the Medicare monthly fee deducted from both our SS checks before we receive our separate monthly payments. Plus we have to pay a supplemental monthly fee to cover what medicare doesn't cover and that costs $400 per month. Still we don't have any insurance coverage for prescriptions because of the way the Medicare prescription coverage is set up and the cost to seniors before it kicks in. We don't have to, thank God, buy that much prescription drugs so wouldn't benefit from the carefully crafted Medicare prescription plan but that is just another monthly cost of health we must pay out of our SS checks. While all this is going on we have to pay more almost monthly for groceries, prescriptions, electricity, phone, etc. which also devastates our retirement income. There is no question in America's senior's minds that this administration is out to eliminate or greatly reduce the senior population in the United States and counteract what science and medicine has done do extend the lives of seniors...now they are out to save money on the back and deaths of America's senior citizens...

grandmaclown
But according to the looney left, we don't need to fix social security or any government program. Obama and the rest of the radicals in DC and our country are doing their best to destroy our country.


John Cowan
The Greatest Generation gives birth to the worst. Irony?

TheBruce Let me summarize this article (to be clear, as President Zero would say):

Thank God, CNS is pointing out something I've been trying to explain to military (of which, I'm a member) and federal employees for literally 15+ years:

Technically, anyone working in the public sector (Federal, Military, State, and Local government) don't pay taxes into anyone's retirement, pension, or welfare fund, whether it be a federal, state, military, or local fund.

When the law was passed in 1984 requiring ALL government workers to have taxes withheld to pay for these things, the law also bumped up all salaries to ensure that nobody's "take home" pay would be affected (working for the gov't).

Long story short? The private sector funds everything. Government workers paying "taxes" is nothing more than an allusion, as their salaries are derived from taxes collected from the private sector. It's all an accounting gimmick, manufactured by the US government.

If you're in the private sector, your hard-earned money is being taken to subsidize the public sector (gov't workers).

If you're in the public sector, any illusion that you're paying taxes is a government-created accounting farce, as you're simply putting money back into a government-created "pot" of money that was already stolen from the private sector.


Natassia
Social Security is worse than a Ponzi scheme. At least Bernie Madoff's investors CHOSE to invest their money with him.

American workers don't have a choice: if they make money, they HAVE TO "invest" in Social Security. And the government promises that while your money is being spent on someone else today, they will simply force someone else in the future to pay for your Social Security checks when you get old.

normanhenry in reply to Natassia
Very good Natassia. I thought I was the only person who recognized that "at least Bernie Madoff's investors CHOSE to invest their money with him." Whoever forces "investors" in Social Security should join Madoff in jail.

John Cowan Congress. And I agree, every single one of the bums should be doing hard time. It is high time to replace every single member of Congress.

MarxistPig
In addition to Social Security recipients, private sector workers are forced to support welfare leeches, criminal aliens and public sector unions.


And Obama's solution is to cut payroll taxes. Brilliant plan.

How about the 59 year old man on his second marriage with a younger wife who decide to have a baby and hire a nanny; the man files for early SS and because he now has a 2 year old, the kid also gets SS -- until 18. The couple have a business, two homes and land investment worth $1M. There's something wrong with this scenario.

masheruser
I don't understand why the 2 year old kid would get SS. Explain that one. The rest of it is perfectly LEGAL until you guys vote these jokers out of office.

Rod Anders
The kid gets SS because his father is over 65 years old.


Leonard Henderson
Right there is where BILLION$ are going down the rathole in FRAUD.


Hamsamwich
Come on folks, ask your employer if you can increase your S.S. deductions to FedGov, hundreds of thousands of illegal Mexicans need your money for their never-ending disabilities!!

Alfedena48 in reply to Hamsamwich
That's not all, the IRS gave $4 billion in refunds to illegals.I have paid for my Social security,so, give me my monies back plus interest and they can keep the bloody thing!!!!!

Jetta242
The root of the problem are illegals and I'm sick of it!!!

legend zero
Couple this with the expansion of net loss government jobs, inhibiting regulations, total corruption on both the corporate and government levels, and the complete collapse.

jnsesq
Reads like a Ponzi scheme to me.

dudley
The way I see it, you need to get on with the Government. Local, State, or Federal workers have gamed the system really good. They have increased their pay substantially over the years compared to there private sector counterparts. The pensions are good, you get to retire at 50, and you get a good payout from SS when you hit 62 1/2. The problem is, it won't last and the ship of fools won't realize it until it's too late.

Albarrs reply to dudley
Federal workers and politicians do NOT pay into SS. They have their own GOLD STAR retirement programs, unlike the working public...


ToBeContinued 6 masheruser
Yes, Public employees opted out of paying into SS, but still collect from the fund upon retirement. My father collected from SS upon retirement almost two decades after LA County workers opted out of SS payroll deductions.

Civil service employees should have been restricted from unionizing. Union leaders, as caliber politicians with clout, re-engineered civil service plans to re-vest prior year retirement contributions at much higher salaries when in fact the money was never initially paid into the plan during their early career years. Now, states and municipalities are barely able to support the retirement pay from severely depressed income tax and property tax revenue limited by massive unemployment and property foreclosures of wage earners.

People who made little or no contribution to our country's wealth collect what remains of the tax revenue, while govt. service suffers, infrastructure crumbles and poor, tired Americans without homes go hungry. The French Revolution comes to mind when considering our country's current woes caused by greedy selfish environmental friendly undeserving civil employees and their union masters of evil.

Albarrs 23 ToBeContinued
The French Revolution, which was a spontaneous uprising by the general populace, is not what we need in America. What we need is another 1775 War of Independence based on the American Declaration of Independence and "taxation without representation" to take our citizen created central government back within the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, including a roll back of self created doctrines by the U.S. Judiciary Branch of Government to a focus on individual constitutional powers, rights and freedoms of jurisprudence and abandon the courts move to judicial activism and the social jurisprudence.

The U.S. Legislative Branch must be held to the constraints of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights or be impeached, and the U.S. Executive Branch must be help to the confines of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights or face expulsion from office for non-compliance with the oath of the Presidency and Constitution...