Sadly, it gets worse.

If you file for and receive Social Security "benefits" (and please note that they no longer use the word 'entitlement), then have more than $18,500 in earned income, your SSI benefits can be taxed at 50%!
To top it all off, when you pass away, SSI STOPS. Period. Your estate gets nothing. It all returns to the government, even if you died prior to receiving your first payment. If you tried to set up a retirement plan for your employees using that model, they'd put you in jail, and rightfully so.

The most outrageous part is that not only did the government steal 15% of our income, they stole it again from the fund, bankrupting the system and now we owe it as debt. Not being satisfied with their thievery, they added payouts to groups that were never even in the system creating programs for widows, orphans, the disabled and other charity cases. The funds wisely invested would have provided a better payout upon retirement than SS benefits and we have to kiss their butt to get some of it back. Now they propose saving the system by reducing the payout to those that paid the most in. You can't make this stuff up.

The easiest way to figure out when the Government is involved in "Legal Plunder" is if you would personally be tracked down, arrested, and punished for doing the exact same thing the Government has done.

I.E. Bernie Madoff structured his "Retirement Fund" exactly the same as Social Security. Ask him how it's working out for him and his investors.

I sleep at night by acknowledging that it is just a tax. At 41, I won't get a penny of it back. If and when everyone receiving it begins to give it back to the workers that it is being stolen from, then we'll only have lost 90% of it to the administration cost of the whole farce, early death, and the income tax on it. Since I'm not planning on using it, I'll be finding some nice young hard working folks to hand it back to along with a copy of Atlas Shrugged, while I think fondly of Ragnar Danneskjöld.

It IS an entitlement. You are entitled to get YOUR money back from the government. The problem here is, liberals have redefined "Welfare" to be an "entitlement". This is wrong because you are not entitled to someone else's money (so the producers believe, we know what the parasites think). This "entitlement" definition is what trips people up when is come to SSI, or Welfare - the libs want them to both be the same thing. Vilify one, vilifies the other.

I was 12 years old when my dad took me to the SS office to register. He said "You will be forced to pay into this your whole life. When it's your turn to collect there won't be any money to pay you." I asked, "Why not?" Dad said, " They will take the money and use it for other things, that's what the government always does."

That was 59 years ago. I remember it perfectly. I always believed he would be proven correct. So each and every time I get a check I am surprised. But I frgging paid into that fund every paycheck since I was 12. It is not an entitlement!

I hate when a politician talks about how people rely on Social Security and how they need it. Did they ever explain to people how much more they would have if the government quit taking their money? What if it was a real retirement plan? How much would they get? Social Security stinks.

Ida May Fuller was the first SS recipient. She paid $25.54 into the system and when she died at age 100, she had collected $22,888.92 from the system. The definition of a Ponzi scheme.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/idapayroll.ht...

The other fact that I have recently discovered is that while, technically, SS does not require that you use Medicare and Medicare does not technically require that you accept SS...(wait for it)...Clinton passed a law in 1993 that linked the two of them: If you accept Medicare you have to also accept SS. (Yes, even if you have complete medical coverage through a corporate policy.) So you now must let the same gov that runs the IRS and the Post Awful can run your health care.

This is almost made moot by the ACA...but I still have hope that will be repealed. Soon. Please.

Jan

Because of the amount of my pension, 85% of my Social Security "benefits" is taxable.

You can't fix stupid, in relation to the referenced reply to the moron's post.

I admire your friend and his persistence. I wish him all the luck.

In response to Jan's post, just because people fail to look out for themselves doesn't mean I am responsible to pad their corners. You are free to do so. What were they doing while my husband was working two jobs. After we were married we had two babies 11 months apart within 2 years and he earned two more college degrees. Our road to financial success was tough and often included working late and every Saturday. We also lived a thousand miles from our parents so we were truly on our own. There was one car. I have helped family members financially when I chose to do so. They a least had to listen to my lecture when I helped them. No one, no government has a right to redistribute what I earned. If I were not a southern lady I'd say f... them. Also, the government will waste our money and take our freedoms and collapse the country. Laws of Economics do exist.

I don't have a problem with AR taking Social Security. She probably needed to since she paid taxes. There is no doubt in my mind that Social Security has made life better for many people. That does not justify the government obligating us to eternal slavery paying for everything for everyone. I will opt for Freedom and all the risk that comes with it. That includes taking care of elderly parents. Maybe that's not a bad idea.

The same can be said of all these entitlement programs. If we simply took all the money we spend on entitlements today, and wrote a check to every American citizen, we would all be millionaires. The bureaucracy eats up .75$ on the dollar conservatively, and those of us not as close to retirement know we are simply paying for our parents retirement, and will never see a penny on the dollar we put in.
The age of collections when SS was started was exactly 1 year over the average life expectancy at the time. Now people collect for almost as long as they pay in, and the amount they collect has no resemblance to the amount they paid.

I was forced to pay into S.S. and have been receiving it for over 15 years. I will never live long enough to get my money back, let alone any kind of profit from the Roosevelt rip-off, but I'll do my best to squeeze every penny out of it that I can. I have always hated the "F" as in F.I.T. - F.I.C.A. - F.U.K.I.T.

It is not a bad idea to invest for old age and retirement. In fact if one could live with only a government mandate (I would have issue with even this) like auto insurance, but stayed out of the funding, a savings plan that was private and individuals invested their own money it may have even profited and left remaining funds to heirs. It is government control and it is a ponzi scheme. The "separate" account has not been invested it has been raided and spent on other "goodies." The fund is reliant on demographic changes and is theft from one generation to the next. One cannot blame the recipients for the mismanagement of their money. It is all on the government. FDR knew this would happen eventually, but not until he had won the votes he wanted. A competitive, private market system was offered as an amendment to the Social security system and was defeated. The amendment was offered by Senator Bennett Clark. The Act "would have allowed employers to opt out of the system as long as they offered their employees pensions with better benefits. Senator Robert M. La Follette, a strong supporter of the original version.objected to offering citizens a choice among plans: If we shall adopt (the Clark) amendment, the government having determined to set up a federal system of old-age insurance will provide, in its own bill creating that system, competition which in the end may destroy the federal system.... It would be inviting and encouraging competition with its own plan which ultimately would undermine and destroy it." pg.184, Jim Powell, FDR's Folly...

Chile and several other countries have converted their transfer payment retirement programs into real investment accounts with amazing results for all. A truly free society would not coerce me to save for retirement, but if we are going to have a system it should be a real retirement system.

He made his decision around the same time that there was a switch in how one obtained a social security number. I don’t remember which year, but I think before the seventies you didn’t need to apply for a SSC number until you went to work. Is that right? I’m not sure.

Greater to have a profession and get a substantial income than to look to rely upon SSN.

I'm 73 and rely entirely on Social Security for an income. The government had seen fit to curtail my income at such a level that other retirement options were not possible. However, that said, if the money i "deposited" with the SSA had been used to even buy government bonds, my current income would be much higher and SS would probably be solvent, assuming the government had kept their hands off it. I would have gladly place my money into other retirement options, if i had had income.

Otherwise, i am in complete agreement with the other comments. Unfortunately, it is too late for me.

Actually Social Security may be the feds way of relieving their guilt for passing laws to allow looters on Wall Street to steal the retirement savings of the majority of people while enriching themselves and maintaining political control. Remember who "advised" many retirement funds to buy near worthless instruments while the sellers were taking a position exactly opposite to the advice?

I am 63, and I have not yet applied for Social
Security. As I have understood for a long time,(and
I have sometimes wondered if Ayn Rand took it or
not), the money that has been taken from me is
gone. Didn't it go to older people as I was paying
it in? So if I file for it, there won't be anyplace
for me to get it from, unless it is from younger
people who will be paying it in then, will there?
I would like to believe it was just waiting there
for me in a box. Or even that it came just from
the general fund. But that is not how I have
understood it to be, for a long time. (I am cur-
rently unemployed, but looking for a job. It is
my intention never to retire, but just to die on
the job, whichever job it is).

Social Security was not a bad idea. It Is a flawed idea. You may or may not get all the money out of the system that you put in. Some will and some wont. Since 9 out of 10 people fail to manage their vouluntary 401k contributions, why would we assume they would manage a private SS account? If you do properly manage your 401k, then you can also afford to fund SS and elect never to file for benefits, thereby allowing somebody else less able to manage money to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Most people have not been trained to fend for themselves, and without the SS safety net, we'd have a society with more seniors on the street corner with I'm hungry signs looking for a handout. SS is the organized hand out program. If you consider SS a charity when you put the money in, then you don't have to find HATE for the system. We live in a society that has ample abundance for all to enjoy. Participate and be glad you don't have to rely on SS. If you do receive a check from SS, donate it and you avoid the tax.

My grandfather, in 1939, I believe, said "let me get my share, this will never work".
Also, I believe Galveston was allowed to vote on wether they wanted to be in S.S. Or not.
Those persons who voted NO, are now are very wealthy!

I've broken my contract when I bought the farm. No paycheck now. I hide alot in my farm to lessen income tax.