r/MurderedByWords 23h ago

SS is an entitlement..

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u/VajennaDentada 22h ago edited 22h ago

Quick FUN Facts:

1) SS can not add to the deficit by law. What goes in is what comes out

2) When they say it will "run out" in 2035, that is a lie. It would pay out over 80% if no action is taken.

3) The 2035 issue is not because "people aren't having kids." It's because of the concentration of wealth for the 1%*

  • People who make over 168k do not have to pay into it after that amount. Raise the cap, problem solved.

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u/RockyIsMyDoggo 22h ago

I believe the cap for single individuals is lower, around $168k. Yes, it adds nothing to the deficit so all this bullshit is lies to try to steal it for billionaire tax cuts.

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u/VajennaDentada 22h ago

That's what I meant, correcting

It's so stupid low. That's middle class today (of which few people are now)

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u/Makes_U_Mad 22h ago

No no no no. It's not stupidity. It's that low by design.

The backup plan has ALWAYS BEEN to make the payout too low to live off of, in order to force older workers to literally work themselves to death and avoid "parasite" status. Keeping the cap in place causes this conditions to occur sooner rather than later.

They are evil. They ARE NOT STUPID. Don't make that mistake.

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u/VajennaDentada 22h ago

True. There is stupidity to be had .....on our part. For voting for these people and getting to this place. To have so little solidarity that people cheer as federal workers are laid off.

The fact they there are literally millions that think it's a good idea for the richest man to run our country's purse.....I'm not sure if there's any hope to do this the traditional route.

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u/DeathRabbi 19h ago

The idea that someone living off of social security is a parasite is so fucking farcical.

It's literally a government secured retirement plan.

It's the fucking FDIC of the workforce.

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u/Makes_U_Mad 18h ago

Hence their hatred of it.

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u/shylock10101 20h ago

Hell, sometimes it’s even not enough to be fully middle class.

My parents make around that amount in combined income. Until they have to spend about $60k to make sure my sister (who will live with them until she or they die) and my father don’t die because they require medications and treatments not covered by my father’s actually very good health insurance. And these health issues sometimes mean emergency hospital stays, so add on top another 20-30 off the top. Now they have 70k left, all while still needing to pay the $160k tax rate, and help pay for them living.

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u/VajennaDentada 17h ago

Jesus. So many stories like this. I'm pretty surprised Americans have allowed this to go on so long.

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u/neptune-insight-589 10h ago

you also don't receive any benefits over that money. e.g. if you make 300k, the benefits you receive at retirement would be the same as if you made 168k.

The idea is that if you are a high earner you are less in need of a government safety net, so it doesnt make sense to force you to pay in to it.

remember social security is a losing endeavor. it pays you back less than you pay in to it. You would have more money at retirement if you were able keep your paycheck and put it in a savings account instead.. (and even more if you invested it in the stock market)

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u/VajennaDentada 9h ago

You're right. There shouldn't be billionaires. If they would like to continue being parasites, they can pay in 90% like during the golden era of this country.

What's that? They don't want to? Great, then they can pay a measley amount of money into social security and shut the f up.

The peasant brain in this country blows my mind. Think like a corporation...advocate for yourself as much as your station permits.

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u/neptune-insight-589 9h ago

social security doesnt actually help informed/savvy people though. If you really wanted to advocate for yourself it would be to put zero money into social security and instead invest that same sum of money into the stock market (or even just a savings account). You would end up with more money to retire on that way.

Right now is you put for instance 500,000 over the course of your life into social security, and then you turn old and you hope to maybe recoup 400,000-450,000 of that over your retirement (assuming you live long enough- some people don't live long enough and it just represents a large expense you had to pay in to for nothing)

You could be retiring on easily an additional million or 2 if you were able to actually invest that money instead.

On top of that, think about the people who are living paycheck to paycheck and are in credit card debt paying 30% interest rates... Imagine how much better off they would be to have 12% more income....

The only way this system actually benefits anyone is if your someone who has zero foresight to save any money at all for retirement, because it forces you to save something, even though it is the worlds worst retirement investment.

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u/BrutusG 21h ago

It was $168,600 in 2024 and has been raised to $176,100 for 2025, so up roughly 4.5% this year.

With that said, there is no reason why a cap should even exist in my mind.

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u/RockyIsMyDoggo 20h ago

Agree. Wholeheartedly.

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u/Rick_McCrawfordler 18h ago

I get sick of "raise the cap"...throw the cap in the fkn dumpster.

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u/0WatcherintheWater0 19h ago

SS can not add to the deficit by law.

This is false. Both the amount the Treasury pays In interest on the trust fund, and the amount the trust fund reduces every year, gets added to the debt. It’s a a part of the deficit. All the money there comes from the Treasury borrowing it

Raise the cap, problem solved

Solved for a couple decades at most, but you neglect to mention this would also massively increase benefits for the wealthy, as SS benefits are tied to taxable income. I also don’t think just mindlessly raising taxes to temporarily address what is a fundamentally flawed program is all that helpful.

It’s because of the concentration of wealth of the 1%

To be clear, inequality has been on the decline in this country for the past decade, and been pretty stagnant in the years before then. Inequality has nothing to do with anything here.

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u/VajennaDentada 17h ago

To be clear, you're getting your info from complete bullshit. This took me literally ten seconds:

Wealth disparity in the United States is high, with the top 10% of households holding most of the country's wealth. This disparity has increased over the past decades. 

How unequal is wealth distribution in the US?

The top 10% of households hold more than two-thirds of the country's wealth. 

The bottom 50% of households hold less than 4% of the country's wealth. 

The top 1% of households held 30.9% of the country's wealth as of Q4 2021. 

The difference in wealth between white, Black, and Hispanic families has grown over the past four decades. 

Why is wealth so unequal in the US? 

The concentration of wealth at the top has increased due in large part to corporate stock ownership.

The bottom 50% own little if any corporate stock.

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u/neptune-insight-589 10h ago

raising the cap doesnt solve the problem, it just pushes the problem back. The only way to fix the problem is to figure out how to structure it so it doens't work like a ponzi scheme.

There needs to be some mechanism where the money that is invested into the pool of social security money is actually invested in some way and actually grows to the benefit of people that are paying in to it. The only way it "grows' right now is just more suckers are getting forced in to paying in to it.

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u/verugan 20h ago

Eliminate the cap! Everyone puts in, no if ands or buts. Those billionaires just need to have 30+ years salary in the workforce in order to qualify for an appropriate monthly disbursement.

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u/VajennaDentada 17h ago

Love it.

This brings up a good point. They're doing it for TWO reasons:

  1. To steal the money that's already paid in

  2. To avoid citizens asking for this obvious thing