Current Events > Why is Social Security running out?

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How can there be more people taking money out of the system than people putting money into the system? Doesn't majority of the population work?
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Congress stole a lot of money from Social Security. On multiple occasions.
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It pays out over $1000/month. Most people pay way less than $12K/year into it.
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Because it's managed by the public sector.
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from my understanding it's not, politicians that hate it just always say it's going to sunset in a few years and "run out of money" because it's always supposed to sunset in a few years without congressional attention. it's the responsibility of congress to manage tax revenue faithfully but many would love to watch it expire entirely.
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tamashiini posted...

Congress stole a lot of money from Social Security. On multiple occasions.

Yes. This is how Bill Clinton's fake "surplus" was achieved.

https://www.mises.org/library/surplus-hoax

Imagine a corporation suffering losses and being deep in debt. In order to boost its stock prices and the bonuses of its officers, the corporation quietly borrows funds in the bond market and uses them not only to cover its losses but also to retire some corporate stock and thereby bid up its price. And imagine the management boasting of profits and surpluses. But that's what the Clinton Administration has been doing with alacrity and brazenness. It suffers sizeable budget deficits, increasing the national debt by hundreds of billions of dollars, but uses trust funds to meet expenditures and then boasts of surpluses which excites the spending predilection of politicians in both parties.

If a corporation executive were to engage in such deceit, the Commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who are supposed to promote full public disclosure and protect the investing public against malpractice in the securities markets, would intervene with severity; when a president of the United States and his appointees engage in similar practices, all his men fall silent.

The surplus deception is clearly discernible in the statistics of national debt. While the spenders are boasting about surpluses, the national debt is rising year after year. In 1998, the first year of the legerdemain surplus, it rose from $5.413 trillion to $5.526 trillion, due to a deficit of $112.9 billion. Since then it has risen to $5.643 trillion today, October 15, 2000, with another deficit of $117 billion.

The federal government spends Social Security money and other trust funds which constitute obligations to present and future recipients. It consumes them and thereby incurs obligations as binding as those to the owners of savings bonds. Yet, the Treasury treats them as revenue and hails them for generating surpluses. If a private banker were to treat trust fund deposits as income and profit, he would face criminal charges.

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I feel like Social Security ending would be one of the few things that would guarantee blood in the streets, you would have a lot of desperate people with nothing to lose going after politicians.
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BignutzisBack posted...

I feel like Social Security ending would be one of the few things that would guarantee blood in the streets, you would have a lot of desperate people with nothing to lose going after politicians.

It's one of those shitty government programs where our 2 real options are...

1) Orderly wind down
2) Ignore math until it implodes

We are going with #2.
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tamashiini posted...

Congress stole a lot of money from Social Security. On multiple occasions.

BignutzisBack posted...

I feel like Social Security ending would be one of the few things that would guarantee blood in the streets, you would have a lot of desperate people with nothing to lose going after politicians.

who gets ss?

elderly people, disabled people and other vulnerable populations. Yeah I don't see them doing that.

I'm sure part of it also is certain types wanting to privatize the whole thing so they try to make things look as worse as possible or sabotage it while saying privatization will work wonders for everyone.
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Shuto-uke posted...

BignutzisBack posted...

I feel like Social Security ending would be one of the few things that would guarantee blood in the streets, you would have a lot of desperate people with nothing to lose going after politicians.

who gets ss?

elderly people, disabled people and other vulnerable populations. Yeah I don't see them doing that.

All the 40, 50 and 60 year olds who'd suddenly find out a benefit that they've been depending on in their retirement plan being pulled away from them is a different story
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BignutzisBack posted...

Shuto-uke posted...

BignutzisBack posted...

I feel like Social Security ending would be one of the few things that would guarantee blood in the streets, you would have a lot of desperate people with nothing to lose going after politicians.

who gets ss?

elderly people, disabled people and other vulnerable populations. Yeah I don't see them doing that.

All the 40, 50 and 60 year olds who'd suddenly find out a benefit that they've been depending on in their retirement plan being pulled away from them is a different story

We aren't Greece, we can print money. Those people will still get their checks, but inflation will gradually make them worthless.
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Because the baby boomers generation is entering the stage where they start collecting.
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Social Security running out of money doesn't mean everyone stops receiving benefits, they just receive less of them. Most of the money comes from people paying into the system right now, and right now there aren't enough relative to the beneficiaries. The reserve fund is supposed to be a fail safe.

Annihilated posted...

Social Security running out of money doesn't mean everyone stops receiving benefits, they just receive less of them. Most of the money comes from people paying into the system right now, and right now there aren't enough relative to the beneficiaries. The reserve fund is supposed to be a fail safe.

Thats not how SS was advertised. You are supposed to be paid back with your own money, not through a Ponzi Scheme.
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tennisdude818 posted...

Annihilated posted...

Social Security running out of money doesn't mean everyone stops receiving benefits, they just receive less of them. Most of the money comes from people paying into the system right now, and right now there aren't enough relative to the beneficiaries. The reserve fund is supposed to be a fail safe.

Thats not how SS was advertised. You are supposed to be paid back with your own money, not through a Ponzi Scheme.

Any socialist program is inherently a Ponzi scheme.

I don't know exact numbers, but something like when SS was enacted, the average life expectancy was like 59. You had to be 65 to collect. Now people are living to 80-90 no problem.
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Because Billionaires don't want to pay for it. Because they feel too many people are on it that shouldn't be.

It's a double edged sword because Republicans want to get people off it. And democrats just want people to pay taxes.

People are living too long.
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boomers will end it unless gen z couples decide to pop out 4-5 kids each
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It's not going bankrupt. The trust is due to be at a full 100 percent until 2034 at which point it will go 79 percent. It's then due to go to 75 percent by 2089. In most of our lifetimes it won't run out.

The thing is republicans want to get people off it. Democrats just want to raise taxes. Honestly there are extremely wealthy people in this country that should be contributing more to it.

I don't see how getting people off it suddenly saves it from going bankrupt. What needs to be done is that money needs to be found somewhere where it can be contributed.

There are people with Billions of dollars in this country. You'd think they would be able to figure out a way to fix it. Or someone at Harvard or something can come up with a way.

The reason it's running out is because people need to come up with a way where it doesn't which is absolutely possible with the amount of people in this world if they want to. Someone at MIT or whatever. You think some math or business geniuses can't figure it out? All it takes is effort and brains.

Anything else is just pure lazyness with the amount of money and people in this world. Or come up with something else.

tennisdude818 posted...

Annihilated posted...

Social Security running out of money doesn't mean everyone stops receiving benefits, they just receive less of them. Most of the money comes from people paying into the system right now, and right now there aren't enough relative to the beneficiaries. The reserve fund is supposed to be a fail safe.

Thats not how SS was advertised. You are supposed to be paid back with your own money, not through a Ponzi Scheme.

It amounts to a lot more money if its collecting interest.
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Right rich people just want to be tax free and do their thing until someone figures out a way to fix it. While everyone else gets taxed to death. The top 1 percent has the lowest tax rate along with the bottom percent. The middle gets hit the hardest.

Because the cap on Social Security taxable income is roughly $120K. Combined with ever-increasing income inequality, less and less money goes into Social Security. Get rid of that cap and everything will be fine.
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If it were that simple that would be done though. Rich people won't allow that or vote for that. They are flat out refusing to pay taxes.

Maybe Russia and the NWO will pay for it. Who knows. Rich people are refusing to pay for it though in the interm until someone comes up with a better idea. it could simply be fixed by raising taxes on the 1 percent but they won't allow it.

most of welfare and social security goes to old people and disabled/sick and people are living longer.

unemployed able bodied people only get a small fraction of what goes to the rest.

if people have a problem with unemployed being on it because they are "useless" and not producing anything then objectively so are the old and disabled who don't have any potential at all to be worth keeping alive if they consider a person's worth being in relation to their ability to produce something/work

ssj-kenobi posted...

most of welfare and social security goes to old people and disabled/sick and people are living longer.

unemployed able bodied people only get a small fraction of what goes to the rest.

if people have a problem with unemployed being on it because they are "useless" and not producing anything then objectively so are the old and disabled who don't have any potential at all to be worth keeping alive if they consider a person's worth being in relation to their ability to produce something/work

WaterLink posted...

People are living too long.

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I really believe that what you read in the media is a farce for the most part. Most of the agendas out there if they are still the same ones 20 years from now people really need to figure out other ways to think. It's bad for people that way. What actually goes on in intelligent minds should be something else. Like thinking separate from that stuff. And honestly for intelligent people it still does.

It's why everything you read in the media people think is going on never ultimately happens and something else does. The internet is a total waste of time that way.

ssj-kenobi posted...

if people have a problem with unemployed being on it because they are "useless" and not producing anything then objectively so are the old and disabled who don't have any potential at all to be worth keeping alive if they consider a person's worth being in relation to their ability to produce something/work

Old people who paid into SS and retired "deserve" it because they paid into it.
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tamashiini posted...

Congress stole a lot of money from Social Security. On multiple occasions.

This. Both parties been raiding it for years and neither side has the balls to admit it.
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M_Live posted...

Honestly yeah I've never understood this either when there should literally be billions of dollars going into it a week. I think it's just a bullshit political talking point

Billions a week?

Most people who work put in less than $100 a month, bruh.
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I like the Ron Paul plan for Social Security: Make it optional. I'd opt out of payments and benefits. It was never supposed to be welfare, but the people ITT demanding the rich pay more and basically calling for welfare.
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Basically, Obama used Social Security as his personal piggy bank.

Look, we have progress!
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If it runs out taxes will go up.
Social Security and Medicare area a bubble due to the Baby Boomers. Nobody can actually afford their social security or Medicare. So in turn they don't retire. It's the snake that eats itself.
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