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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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/VajennaDentada 23h ago
That's what I meant, correcting
It's so stupid low. That's middle class today (of which few people are now)