Why don't we have enough money for social security?

Question

They say that the baby boomers are going to drain the last of the social security money. How can that be? Shouldn't the baby boomers have paid social security so we should have a surplus left over from them? Did the government just spend it irresponsibly or are there some facts that I'm unaware of?

Answer 1

think about social security and at the time it was created as a triangle. the base of the triangle represents all the baby boomers and the top of the triangle the seniors of the time. well, the baby boomers paid to have those seniors to get taken care of. NOW, the triangle has been inverted. there are more baby boomers ready to collect social security, with less of us contributing to the program.

Answer 2

Social Security is a ponzi scheme. When it was started, there were 40 paying into it for every 1 drawing from it. Now it is about 3 to 1. The term surplus has a different meaning when it applies to SS. Say there are 1 billion in payments in a year. If they took in 1.1 billion, there is a surplus. The government then spends the money. There is no SS trust funds, just a bunch of IOU's.

What needs to happen is the government needs to get out of the retirement business. This was done in Galveston, TX in the 1980's. Guess the result, 2-3 times the return of SS. Did you also know that the stock market has always performed better than SS over the same time frame.

We need voluntary priviate accounts now. I am tired of paying for someone else's inability or refusal to take care of themselves.

Answer 3

The Congress of the United States spent the money in the Social Security Trust fund for other things. This primarily started with President L.B. Johnson so he could continue the Viet Nam war without raising taxes. You also have to realize that the ratio of the number of people paying into - vice receiving money - from the fund has greatly changed since its inception in the 1930s. There in lies the future problem, some estimate by 2050 or sooner, two workers will be paying while a third receives funds.

Answer 4

Because people are living longer than anticipated, which ends up costing more money over their lifetimes than budgeted.

And because the rate of interest/gain on the SSI account doesn't offset the rate of inflation. So, to provide equivalent benefits, more money is needed from a smaller pool.

Also, because the 'baby boomers' are one of the largest concentrations of people retiring all around the same time, and they are being paid from the people who were paying into the fund for the past few decades, which is a much smaller number.

So, part of the problem is just numerical imbalance between the amount being paid in, versus the amount taken out, based on population and other economic factors. But some part of it is also govt mismanagement, because the problem has been predicted for decades and nothing has been done about it.

Answer 5

Because our government has been dipping into the funds & using them for other stuff.

Because the baby boomer generation is a going to be a boatload of folks hitting retirement age all at the same time.

Because there aren't enough of the generation after boomers working now to support the baby boomers when they retire.'

Answer 6

When SS started the ratio of workers to recipients was like 10 to 1 As time has passed that ration is now about 3 to 1. Thus creating a LARGE strain on the system. Also when SS was founded it was Never meant to be the Sole source of Income when One retired although we now know MANY people do count on it as there only income. And Yes the Government has filled our SS system with IOU's they can't pay. You combine All of this and it puts us at the point we are now. SS Needs repaired as for what the Best fix is. That I cannot answer. I hope this helps yah a little.

Answer 7

The boomers are already paying for it now through the lovely social security tax that is taken out for every paycheck, but the funds are being used for a war and the military by the current administration instead of being set aside as they should be. So, everyone better be having savings accounts and 401 k plans.

Answer 8

When Social Security was first instituted, it was used for what it was meant for, RETIREMENT. Fast forward several decades, and it is easy to see how program has fallen prey to rampant abuse. It was never meant to sustain people with idiotic excuses like "I'm too fat", "I'm too stupid", or " I have adult ADD". This is lunacy. Our government has become a feeding trough for lazy, shiftless people at the taxpayers expense. Throw in the illegals that our illustrious government wants to give Social Security to, and you can easily see how the program is quickly imploding. Plus there is fewer taxpayers supporting the system, as America has since Roe v. Wade, aborted a good portion of it's work force.

Answer 9

you'll stay at poverty element except you made a minimum of 70,000. in accordance to year for years and years. yet another unhappy element is that us infant boomers were loading up the social safe practices coffers and agencies like CPS were utilising it to fund their reign of terror on our households and performing like the money tree will in no way die. they don't look to be understanding that there are extra persons infant boomers who're extremely going to desire that money actual quickly and in view that there at the on the spot are not almost as many childrens or childrens that artwork now, so the coffers at the on the spot are not filling back up. an excellent number of our youthful who will be operating are locked up in prisons because of this so stated as conflict on drugs and each little thing else. We pay into social safe practices to protect our elders and those who're not in a position to artwork. The trianlge is now on this is element, the point being our youthful men and women with the baby boomers on the right, the bottom. it really is going to be any incorrect way round yet us infant boomers got here way too many in a short era of time. there can not be any money left for us when we like it. There are too many growing old infant boomers now and in no way sufficient youthful operating human beings to fill the social safe practices coffers back up.

Answer 10

It's not a savings plan. It's a pyramid scheme. The people who contributed previously are paid through the contributions of the workers of today. In the future, there will be fewer workers, and thus a lower worker-to-entitled ratio. Social Security and other federal entitlement programs will be re-worked before there's a financial disaster, you can bet on it.