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Q&A With Scott Burns: Social Security, Medicare And Welfare: It’s Complicated
As a practical matter, both Social Security and Medicare can be considered as welfare for everyone, providing guaranteed benefits when personal savings and income aren’t adequate. B.S. Where is the money I & employer contributed for 30 + years.
k, well, check it out and do the math (I mean, did you read the article?) Figure out your total contrib and what you can take out now and compute the return. Not supposed to match equity or even balanced investment over decades, is it? Let's review: \\\ ... when judging Social Security, it’s not just a question of dollars paid out, but also the intangible benefits bestowed. The program’s future benefit checks provide a sense of financial security for one’s retirement years, and beneficiaries get coverage for disability and survivors’ insurance throughout their entire working careers. Such insurance would otherwise have to be purchased commercially. "If you are 65 and crowing that you didn’t get your money’s worth, then you were lucky to never have used the other two parts of the safety net — disability insurance and survivor’s insurance," [Timothy] Smeeding [public policy prof at UWisc] said. Finally, the Urban Institute notes that, in a practical sense, Americans aren’t paying their Social Security tax dollars into a personal account and then taking those dollars out, plus interest, once they retire. ...
The word welfare is used to insult the pride of the retired working person such that they would support any retirement program over Social Security. It isn't used for intellectual accuracy. Whose best interest is served is in the eye of the individual. "ACHIEVING A “LENINIST” STRATEGY Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis published in 1983 in CATO Journal, vol.3, no. 2 should be read by everyone wanting to understand the use of manipulation and psychology in seemingly innocent arguments about the Social Security system.
Comments
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/feb/01/medicare-and-social-security-what-you-paid-what-yo/
Derf
Figure out your total contrib and what you can take out now and compute the return.
Not supposed to match equity or even balanced investment over decades, is it?
Let's review:
\\\ ... when judging Social Security, it’s not just a question of dollars paid out, but also the intangible benefits bestowed. The program’s future benefit checks provide a sense of financial security for one’s retirement years, and beneficiaries get coverage for disability and survivors’ insurance throughout their entire working careers. Such insurance would otherwise have to be purchased commercially.
"If you are 65 and crowing that you didn’t get your money’s worth, then you were lucky to never have used the other two parts of the safety net — disability insurance and survivor’s insurance," [Timothy] Smeeding [public policy prof at UWisc] said.
Finally, the Urban Institute notes that, in a practical sense, Americans aren’t paying their Social Security tax dollars into a personal account and then taking those dollars out, plus interest, once they retire. ...
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1983/11/cj3n2-11.pdf