It actually changes over time as the trustees make new assessments based on actuarial data and forecasted revenues. IIRC from some of the reading I've done over the past few days, not that long ago they thought that the trust fund would run dry in 2037; now that year is 2033. It's also important to note that the trust fund in question is all based on special bonds issued by the Treasury that can only be bought by government trust funds. So, the trust fund isn't so much a fund as a debt the US owes to itself. And the trust fund isn't growing; we are steadily depleting it because there isn't enough payroll taxes to come in to cover all of the promised benefits. Once the trust fund is gone, the payroll taxes are estimated to cover about 75% of promised benefits. Of course, another hit to employment levels and thus reduced amounts of payroll taxes could roll that 2033 date back even closer.

Spot

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

I'm not asking a different question. I have stated that, from a SS position, you are not better off now than you were 4 years ago b/c (a) SS is less solvent now than it was 4 years ago and (b) you have 4 more years of your own money invested into the failing system than you did 4 years ago.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

That's a copout. For one thing, it isn't expected to "run out of money" for many decades. Like 20-30 years even with no changes. For another thing, it only takes minor tweaks to make it last much, much longer.

Tell me how no changes are made that will extend the funding of Social Security. Which politicians will allow it to happen without some other safety net to take its place? What process will occur? If you can't come up with a reasonable scenario whereby this comes to pass, your whole thread falls apart.

I'm 56, and I have no doubt that Social Security, in much the same form as it is now, will be available for much of my retirement. I will also point out that my contributions in the past have paid for past, current, and future beneficiaries, which makes "us" better off than without.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

That's not a solution. That is a postponement of the inevitable. SS has always been a pyramid scheme.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

I'm sure those folks who have been doing manual labor for 40+ years will have no issue with waiting a few more years in their 60s doing yet more manual labor. Better that than raising the cap on wages subject to the tax, or subjecting more kinds of income to the tax, or anything that might affect top earners. Good thing that roofers and landscapers don't have the political capital employed by those in the financial industry.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

No, it is not. Start here.

http://www.motherjones.com/...-scheme-venn-diagram

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

How is that a copout? The trust fund runs dry by 2033, likely earlier (Medicare's hospital trust exhausts in 2026). That will be before I retire. So, you will be retired before I retire. Most likely, you will stll be alive when I retire. If I, and everyone around my age, retires without SS, or with a greatly reduced SS, do you believe that will have no impact on you? Of course not.

SS is a pyramid scheme. Every year we get our projected benefits and every year they change. Four years ago, my projected SS benefits were much higher than the projection I received this year. However, my contributions to SS increased during that 4 year period. I paid more and am projected to get less than 4 years go. Same for you. Explain to me how you (or I) am better off than 4 years ago?

There isn't another baby boom to pump a fresh load of kiddos into the workforce to replace the drain on SS from the baby boomers. It's a pyramid scheme that is reaching its demise.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

So using spot's numbers, after 2033 SS will only be able to cover 75% of its current promises if nothing else changes. what was that figure 4 years ago? lets say 80%, since you say it;s gotten worse, but not much worse. if you had an asset of $350K in it before, the realizable value of that asset would have been $280K 4 years ago and $262,500 now.

so you've pissed away a total of $17,500 over the last 4 years. If your non-SS wealth grew by more than that, then you are better off than you were.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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Start with Mother Jones? Cute.

It's a pyramid scheme, not ponzi scheme.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Medicare is the truly intractable problem.
Would you spend an extra million to live another year? How about 10 million?
If the government has to pay, then how much should they have to spend to keep you alive?
What about a private insurer, can they let you die if the bill exceeds 1 million?

The only solution- "Death Panels"
(Palin was only 96% retarded).

The Democratic Party would create a death panel decision process where angry, overweight, middle age female bureaucrats will decide if you live or die.
The Republican Party will allow the monkeys, (I am talking about trained genetically engineered monkeys working for a banana a day), at the WonderSleep corporation call center make the decision.

SS isn't the only issue at play. I already identified the myriad of other issues. Then, you and I began to focus only on SS. I said, from a SS only perspective, no one is better off than they were 4 years ago. You just agreed with me.

Thank you.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

We spend something like 80% of all medical costs during the last 10% of life. Pretty crazy. Yet we have prosecutors going after people for assisted suicide of terminal patients. I don't get it.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

I don't give a rat's ass what JSA says. I'm better off now than I was 4 years ago. By about $125K per year. With the associated defined benefit pension increases. And the $500K increase in 401K/403B. Waa, waa, waa.

Social Security is going nowhere. Too politically hot. Wife retires next year, me in 8 years or so. Sadly Social Security is the most financially secure thing we have in the fed govt. Never trust a lawyer.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

Good luck.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

A couple years ago, NPR did a series on why Europe seemed to spend less on health care than the US, but seemingly got better outcomes. The fact that in the US we will spend gazillions of dollars to prolong life at almost any cost was a huge factor, IIRC.

Spot

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

In summary:
1) Some people are better off
2) Some people are NOT better off
3) Some people are worse off
4) The most intractable problems of our generation have not been solved, nor have they gone away.
5) Stupid people are surprised by points 1-4
6) Really, really stupid people believe that it is meaningful to blame points 1-5 on those who do not share their political views.

Before I get started here I would question the validity of the numbers in the article. From the article.

According to the institute’s data, a two-earner couple receiving an average wage — $44,600 per spouse in 2012 dollars — and turning 65 in 2010 would have paid $722,000 into Social Security and Medicare.

The first problem I see is that most peoples income starts low and goes up. $44,600 as an "Average wage" means that adjusted for inflation they started out day one making the same wage they ended up with at retirement. It doesn't work that way. Second it appears to me they are not accounting for the change in rates. A person retiring in 2010 would have only been paying 5.3% when they started working rather then the 10.2% they pay today.

Looking at SS only, a couple making 89200 today, adjusting for inflation and NOT adjusting for any increase in income, I.E. they started out making an inflation adjusted 44,600, would have paid in 210,379.80 into SS in a 40 year career. This does not include Medicare. If I plug in a 2% return in that money you will end up with $289,903. This is so low because when these people started working they were only making 16K a year and paying a total rate of ~6% compared to 10.3% we are paying today. This couple paid 972$ in total into SS the first year they worked. That's if they started at an inflation adjusted income of 89,200$ the first day they worked.

2. Time value of money. It is unreasonable to not include some earnings. If the government had not taken your SS dollars you would have had the opportunity to invest that and make more than inflation in most years. You could expect a modest return. they are using 2% in this calculation.

I don't disagree however this is NOT how the system is set up. The system is a first in first out system leaving only the excess, "Trust fund", to collect interest. While I think it reasonable to expect a return on ones investments it is not only unreasonable but largely impossible to expect a return on something that does not exist in order to make a return. The "Return" in this case is supposed to come from "Tax dollars". Problem is that this return was based on incorrect expectations of both age/survival as well as ratio of workers to retired.

Since they continue to take out fica-m on all your earnings you could make enough where it equaled out for medicare payments vs costs, but it would be a small part of the population that would lose on medicare.

The article is showing, even with what I think are incorrect calculations that everyone gets more money then they put into SS. The only people that this *might* not be the case for would be those projections in the future assuming current increase in benefits and rates, which isn't going to happen, and possibly a very few that are paying near the cap and die slightly below the average life span.

Without actually going thru their numbers I'm not really sure where they came up with what they have. My numbers are from a spreadsheet I put together a long time ago incorporating historical inflation and SS rates. No guarantee those are correct either.

~Matt

"However, I am paying more in taxes and less and less of my tax dollars are going towards things government should be providing. In addition, I am paying more and more to the government while receiving less and less from it. My social security payments will never come back to me. Soon, I will be paying my own health insurance and yours as well. So, no, absolutely not. Anyone who says otherwise is completely incapable of seeing the big picture. "

from post 18... you were saying that anyone who is saying that they are better off is wrong. The statement here does not seem to limit itself to SS, you are saying that the problems with SS and gov't in general overrides anything else.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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When did that matter? He has claimed that there will be $0 paid to him, offered no proof, rejected every single counter argument. At worst, there might be some reduction in SS benefits for extremely wealthy individuals, and changes in age limits or COLA's.

The larger problem is that he only looks at the taxation part of government ("the government is taking more of my money..."). The fact is, stabilizing the housing market and keeping interest rates low allowed me (and many others) to refi homes, savings enormous amounts of money. QE-1/2/3/4 supported capital creation which allowed my wife's startup to be purchased. There are countless examples. Clearly these policies (and many others) may not be fair or sustainable (a valid point to be debated), but they have had significant positive impacts at this point. These are not isolated: one could look at the 1980's defense buildup, which allowed my father to retire comfortably or any number of other examples.

Luck is what is needed by those who do not plan.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

My impression on the economic policy of Obama over the last 6 years.
1) One of the few good things that Bush did was to engineer the government economic response to the crisis before he left office.
2) One of the few good things Obama did was to follow the Bush plan (obviously adding a few handouts to his constituents).
3) This left the republicans with two choices:
A) try to take credit for Bush's good ideas (and recognize that Obama was not a incompetent) or
B) pretend that the entire history of 20th century macroeconomics does not exist, and try to chart a new path back to the 19th century.

I am not sure why the republicans chose path B). Path A) has a lot if of credibility.

I guess if you define 75% of benefits to be "greatly reduced," I can't argue with your definition.

And, yet again, you don't address how this demise will come about with nobody changing anything to prolong the life of the system. Why is that?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Your inability to learn from different sources is sad. And if you can't see where the explanation of why it isn't a ponzi scheme relates to why it isn't a pyramid scheme, then you aren't as smart as you think you are.

ETA, how about Bloomberg, http://www.businessweek.com/...is_social_secur.html

You can keep saying it, still doesn't make it true.

And SS will outlive you. I'll make you a bet, if there is no SS at all when you retire, as you claim will happen, I'll send you a check equal to what you are projected to make in this year's SS statement, if SS is still here, you send me your SS check.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

For one thing, it isn't expected to "run out of money" for many decades.

Doesn't this depend on how you look at it?

If we look at it from the point of view that the government can always take more money from it's citizens then no government program will ever "Run out of money" until all of it's citizens have run out of money.

OTOH if we look at SS from an accounting standpoint, for all intents and purposes SS has ALREADY run out of money. Considering that A) the "Trust fund" was taken and spent for other functions and B) More money is being paid out in benefits then being collected in revenue and has been for ~3-4 years and is expected to enter an even larger deficit not a smaller one.

When the accounting office says "We still have money" it's based on the idea that the trust fund actually exists. It doesn't. The real problem with this is that the only way to get the trust fund back is to get more revenue, shift revenue and or continue to deficit spend. Raising revenue means raising taxes. Shifting revenue means cutting other programs.

Anyone looking at the US government from a business aspect would be saying "There's no money left". Of course businesses can't force their customers to pay them and not deliver anything to them.

~Matt

JSA is currently in the dumps because he (and I) live in WI which been consistently lagging behind the US in this recovery.