Six blind men describe Social Security

[zeitgeist]

Take a walk on the wild side and see what the most intelligent people on the planet don't know about Social Security. 
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10022500508

JDPriestly (36,358 posts)

The highest, average and lowest Social Security benefits.
Last edited Wed Mar 13, 2013, 02:48 PM USA/ET - Edit history (2)

 The maximum benefit depends on the age a worker chooses to retire. For example, for a worker retiring at age 66 in 2012, the amount is $2,513. This figure is based on earnings at the maximum taxable amount for every year after age 21.
 
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/5/~/maximum-social-security-retirement-benefit
 
The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker was about $1,230 at the beginning of 2012. This amount changes monthly based upon the total amount of all benefits paid and the total number of people receiving benefits.
 
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/13/~/average-monthly-social-security-benefit-for-a-retired-worker
 
Minimum:

There is no minimum monthly Social Security benefit amount. For administrative reasons, we will not pay a benefit of less than $1.
 
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/254/~/minimum-social-security-retirement-amount
 
No one is getting rich off Social Security. If you wait until you are 70 and pay the maximum tax your entire working life, you may receive more, but if you have income of over $40,000 per year, you pay a higher tax on your Social Security.
 
Compare these figures to the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars:

It's a running number rising every second or less. You have to see it to believe it, but it is over $1,430,342,050,000. More than that just for those two wars according to this website.
 
http://costofwar.com/

Do you really think that Social Security benefits should be cut? Do you think that is where the waste is?
 
I don't.

By the way, I don't think there are many if any people who earned the maximum subject to Social Security taxes from the age of 21 throughout their life. Especially not today. I'd like to know how many if any recipients qualify for the maximum. Maybe someone who works for a family business. But even that would be pretty impossible. Maybe certain farmers whose families owned a lot of land already when the current retiree turned 21.

Farmers?  Say what now??

But it gets better:

Hestia (1,663 posts)

1. The maximum is paid out to 1%ers who, in their thinking, paid into the system and now withdrawal

from it. There has been talk of cutting people off who have X amount of liquid retirement savings. (Can't remember what that limit is now.)
 

Response to Hestia (Reply #1)

Wed Mar 13, 2013, 05:14 PM

 HiPointDem (13,554 posts)

12. no, the maximum is not paid out only to '1 percenters'. and 85% of benefits are *already*

subject to taxation depending on your other income, and have been since reagan.

Now to me HiPoint will always be a round of ammunition but I digress. 

hack89 (19,628 posts)

13. You just need to earn $106,000 to get the max.
that is not the 1%. Many educated professionals will earn that much by the time they get in their 60s.

This post comes after many dealing with means testing. Most do not want means testing, some citing the belief that it Social Security would become welfare. 

greiner3 (3,891 posts)

7. As a life long;

Bipolar and Major Depression mentally ill person, I've had my 'ups and downs' concerning my work history.
 
While I have worked some or all of 38 out of my 56 years, this includes paper routes starting at the age of 11.
 
I have owned my own Domino's Pizza franchise, been 'technically' homeless and so many degrees of in between.
 
I am on SSDI and receive $1,700/month.

I owed some from a past 'stint' of SSDI (I got a bit better) and with the Part A and B premiums, see $1,550/month.
 
I do well enough as I made do with a LOT less for some years and learned to manage pennies.
 
It was a strange road and now that I am better I am trying to build a legacy for my children/grandchildren

A legacy?  OF WHAT??

Response to greiner3 (Reply #7)

Thu Mar 14, 2013, 03:06 AM

 JDPriestly (36,358 posts)

26. Your benefits are much higher than the average.

Good for you.

Well, at least it is not Welfare.   Of course no one points out that Social Security was never meant to be a replacement for all of one's retirement needs.  Well not on paper anyway.  No one points out that it is a regressive tax and payout ponzi scheme that is, to use the optics of the day, "UNSUSTAINABLE". 


How do you live on Social Security?  Not well I would suspect.  These are our self professed "best and brightest"  be affraid, be very affraid.

[Karin]

Maybe certain farmers whose families owned a lot of land already when the current retiree turned 21.

What does owning land in the family have to do with anything?   

I wonder what happened with the Major Depression mentally ill DUmmie, that he had to pay it back? 

[GOBUCKS]

By the way, I don't think there are many if any people who earned the maximum subject to Social Security taxes from the age of 21 throughout their life. Especially not today. I'd like to know how many if any recipients qualify for the maximum. Maybe someone who works for a family business. But even that would be pretty impossible.

Now that's hilarious! Ignorance like that is how democrats get elected.

The main objective of DUmp higher education is to avoid math, so maximizing SS sounds elitist to them.

It's inconceivable to DUmpmonkeys that millions and millions of normal Americans max out SS tax every year of their working lives.


 

[NHSparky]

Assuming it's around when I retire, I'm pretty close to maxxing out, DUmmies.  Then again, I'm not going for the max. 

Even now, if I retired at age 67 with "full" benefits, I and my employers will have paid FAR more into the system than I'll be able to get out, unless I live to at least the age of (drum roll please)....

94.  Yeah.  Not ****in likely.

[Carl]

I wonder how many of the sooper geniuses at the DUmp understand that if SS eligibility was indexed to life expectancy the way the great and benevolent FDR set it up as,you would have to be 80 or older to begin to collect.

[GOBUCKS]

greiner3 (3,891 posts)

I am on SSDI and receive $1,700/month.

It was a strange road and now that I am better I am trying to build a legacy for my children/grandchildren

DUmmy greinernumber is just another in a long line of DUmp disability cheats.

No recent updates from the Omaha Weeper on his quest for ticket on the gravy train.

[J P Sousa]

When I was first married, a life insurance salesman (a high school friend) came and worked out some numbers comparing the same money I contributed to social security, to putting it in a savings account or life policy at 5% interest.

That was some education that helped me become a republican and a firm believer that SS was a scam.   

[Freeper]

When I was first married, a life insurance salesman (a high school friend) came and worked out some numbers comparing the same money I contributed to social security, to putting it in a savings account or life policy at 5% interest.

That was some education that helped me become a republican and a firm believer that SS was a scam.   

Don't worry the government will have their hands in your savings account soon enough.

[Wineslob]

Only the DUmpmonkiees would attempt an "eat the rich" with a sacred cow.