i got a statement from our social security administration today and it tells me that i can receive X dollars if i retire at 62 and X dollars more at 67. if i were disabled now my SS would be X dollars. i looked at the pathetic amount and thought to myself that this will probably cover FOOD for an entire month and that's about it.

do you ever get those statements? and do you feel like "i've gotta read up more on the investment forum here" every time you get these?

 

Yea, those statements are ridiculous. I wish there was a way to just quit the whole program and put even 1/2 the money in my pocket.

 

Just think how much you could have if you were investing that money yourself instead of "letting" the government do it for you. What the 1000's I've paid in will pay for sure won't feed me.

 

have you looked at how little you have contributed to SS though? You are only putting in 6.2% of your salary up to a cap of roughly $100k... so $6200 a year max...

i guess we should get credit for the employer match too... so $12,400 a year..... at a safe 5% interest i guess working from 22-62 there should be a lot more than $2k a month coming back....

maybe SS does suck...

 

Remember this, the US economy is 14 trillion.

The cost to repair SS is 53 trillion.

If the next generation is counting on using SS as a retirement plan they are fooked.

The plan is doomed in 14 years. Google Beck from CNN ,he wrote a sobering article.

SS is a stupid outdated idea where the gov thinks the average Joe is too stupid to plan for their retirement. Sadly this is true. The average US retiree enters retirement with 100K and the hope that with this meager amount and SS the will make it to death.

That has to suck donkey balls because of the sense of entitlement this nation has.

My wife and I retired in our early thirties and we consider the funds we paid into the sink hole lost money. I would have rather taken that money to a strip club and supported a single mom.

 

I'm laughing hard right now because you all think SS will be there when you retire.

 

most americans would just blow that money on crap instead of saving it. The average national saving rate is 1%.

 

mines 719-80-1189

 

Keep paying in you younger guys, maybe I'll get mine and buy a tank of gas with my SS.

 

SS is such a disaster just to andunderstand the true scope [laid out well by a previous poster might I add] of its problems is frightening.

Then throw in Medicare. The most disturbing part of all is that people now want universal healthcare and think this will be a positive thing. Those who believe that are a) mentally incompetent b) irrational c) in denial. There is absolutely no evidence or rationality to support the government in being able to efficiently and successfully implement a program like SS, Medicare, or anything similar to it. Nothing that I mentioned has anything to do with politics.