The report offers two main solutions to the retirement crisis: expanding and strengthening Social Security—“the most successful government program in our nation’s history”
Social Security has each generation depend on the next generation paying for its retirement. That’s kind of what happened historically, when kids took care of aging parents. Problem is that everyone else’s kids pay for your retirement, which means that your incentive to do the work of raising kids goes away; Social Security puts the load on people who have kids to turn them into the next generation of productive workers. It’s great if you never raise kids, but it’s a pretty raw deal if you do raise kids.
It also deals poorly with scenarios where the population pyramid inverts – like, birth rates fall off and such. Then suddenly instead of lots of kids supporting a few older people’s retirement, you have a lot of retirees expecting a few younger people to pay for their retirement.
I’d kinda favor 401(k)s or something more like that; that has each generation fund its own retirement, rather than relying on the next. That way, the payments in are proportional to the size of the population cohort, rather than proportional to the size of some other population cohort (like, the next generation).
I’d kinda favor 401(k)s or something more like that
I’d rather not have to rely on market gambling to survive in my old age. Many people probably agreed with you until about 2008, when a LOT of retirees lost most of their retirement money during the recession and a lot of really old people went back to work. It was pretty bad, and I’ll never forget it.
Not that it matters. I can barely afford to live week to week now, let alone save money for retirement. I’ll probably just die, I guess. 🤷♀️
Social Security has each generation depend on the next generation paying for its retirement.
This is a true statement but misleading.
Social Security deductions from worker’s paychecks just go into the general government coffers, not specific savings for Social Security recipients. The government spends this regularly, and separately takes part of the money out of the general coffers and pays today’s Social Security recipients. For decades the government has spent the Social Security surplus on non-Social Security stuff. If it hadn’t, there would be plenty of money in the Social Security “savings account” without having to reduce benefits to future Social Security recipients.
Al Gore was going to set this up in the year 2000. Instead Florida couldn’t count votes cast properly and we had President George W. Bush.
SS is insurance you cannot outlive. 401K’s only work for the middle class and up that are able to out save living and medical costs. They are not the same thing and do not work as a replacement.
Social Security has each generation depend on the next generation paying for its retirement. That’s kind of what happened historically, when kids took care of aging parents. Problem is that everyone else’s kids pay for your retirement, which means that your incentive to do the work of raising kids goes away; Social Security puts the load on people who have kids to turn them into the next generation of productive workers. It’s great if you never raise kids, but it’s a pretty raw deal if you do raise kids.
It also deals poorly with scenarios where the population pyramid inverts – like, birth rates fall off and such. Then suddenly instead of lots of kids supporting a few older people’s retirement, you have a lot of retirees expecting a few younger people to pay for their retirement.
I’d kinda favor 401(k)s or something more like that; that has each generation fund its own retirement, rather than relying on the next. That way, the payments in are proportional to the size of the population cohort, rather than proportional to the size of some other population cohort (like, the next generation).
I’d rather not have to rely on market gambling to survive in my old age. Many people probably agreed with you until about 2008, when a LOT of retirees lost most of their retirement money during the recession and a lot of really old people went back to work. It was pretty bad, and I’ll never forget it.
Not that it matters. I can barely afford to live week to week now, let alone save money for retirement. I’ll probably just die, I guess. 🤷♀️
could you fucking hurry up about it, there’s a line forming.
I can’t afford the queue fee
This is a true statement but misleading.
Social Security deductions from worker’s paychecks just go into the general government coffers, not specific savings for Social Security recipients. The government spends this regularly, and separately takes part of the money out of the general coffers and pays today’s Social Security recipients. For decades the government has spent the Social Security surplus on non-Social Security stuff. If it hadn’t, there would be plenty of money in the Social Security “savings account” without having to reduce benefits to future Social Security recipients.
Al Gore was going to set this up in the year 2000. Instead Florida couldn’t count votes cast properly and we had President George W. Bush.
Properly depending on whose side you were on.
I would say it was properly done for its intended purpose. Unfortunately.
SS is insurance you cannot outlive. 401K’s only work for the middle class and up that are able to out save living and medical costs. They are not the same thing and do not work as a replacement.
Exactly. Problem is no one educates anyone on that and instead just push for you to put more into 401k
lol your entire premise is that everyone is selfish
Weirdly, I usually only hear selfish people make that suggestion.
What a strange attempt at gaslighting.
Feel free to find me the altruistic people who believe everyone is selfish.