# Abolishing Social Security **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381 "2016-12-10T20:48:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/61 "2016-12-12T17:16:33Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > If the process was honest, the folks opting out would have 12.5% to invest, not 6.25%. That would certainly improve the math. > > I haven’t worked out whether it results in a tolerable outcome for low income folks. My WAG is that it’d still be real marginal. The folks in Galveston County contribute 6.13 percent of their own gross earnings, and the county kicks in another 7.785 percent, so the comparison’s math is based on a total of 13.915% [Matagorda and Brazoria counties had similar but not exactly the same rates.] The math is bad for lower-wage workers, and would be much much worse if the process wasn’t honest as far as employer contributions. As you note, the progressive redistribution features are very good features. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/62 "2016-12-12T18:14:16Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > You’re saying that prior to Social Security there was widespread starvation among retired people? I don’t know about the US, but inadequate nutrition of the elderly and of those in need persists over here to this day. It was part of Mhairi Black’s [maiden speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZAmhB55_-k). (An absolutely cracking speech, BTW.) ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/63 "2016-12-12T18:32:53Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Yes, among millions of other people. > > There’s a reason you don’t see famines in the US anymore; it’s because of all those evil social programs like Social Security that were put in after people\* did\* starve during the Great Depression. You appear to be _spectacularly_ deluded about starvation during the Great Depression. Here’s a [scholarly paper on mortality during 1927 - 1939](http://users.ox.ac.uk/~chri3110/Details/P514%20Banking%20crises%20JECH.pdf), that goes into considerable detail and includes a comprehensive table of mortality causes. It clearly shows an overall _decline_ in mortality rates during the period studied. I did some Googling to try to learn where your stunningly false idea might have originated. A possible source is this [article by Boris Borisov](http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc0903/amholomor.htm), a Russian “Holodomor apologist.” (The Holodomor is the Ukraine Terror Famine engineered by Stalin; Borisov is aiming to excuse/minimize Stanlin’s crimes by claiming equivalence with what was happening elsewhere). This was circulated by Pravda in 2008. His claims are based on dubious analysis of population statistics, and are [explained/debunked here](https://www.mises.ca/stalins-apologists/). I’m gobsmacked that this sort of thing could be offered uncritically on the SDMB. Please let us know where you got this wild idea of millions of deaths by starvation. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/64 "2016-12-12T18:41:10Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > I’m gobsmacked that this sort of thing could be offered uncritically on the SDMB. Please let us know where you got this wild idea of millions of deaths by starvation. Is “starvation” the same as “death by starvation”? I suffered from starvation at times when I was a kid, and I’m not dead…yet. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/65 "2016-12-12T19:21:11Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Excuse me, Miss Candide, but you seem to be logged in to **Guinistasia** ’s account instead of your own. Let’s get you over to Professor Pangloss; he’ll put you right… Sorry if I don’t want to start acting like Chicken Little yet. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/66 "2016-12-12T20:49:47Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > You appear to be _spectacularly_ deluded about starvation during the Great Depression. Der Trihs isn’t actually saying that millions starved during the Depression; he said that famine killed millions before the advent of comprehensive relief programs. As your own cite shows, per-capita relief spending quadrupled between 1929-1932, and continued to rise throughout the 1930s. (The first Social Security payments were not made until 1940.) The United States has never seen a widespread famine on the scale of the Irish famine of the 1840s, or the Skull famine in southern India in the 1790s. Even at the depths of the Depression, around 75% of American workers had jobs and regular income; however, soup kitchens and breadlines became a regular feature of the American landscape. Parts of California had good harvests (especially after the construction of Hoover Dam and other irrigation projects), even as the Midwest baked in the Dust Bowl. In other places that have had major famines in the absence of major relief programs, millions starved. The Great Famine of Ireland probably killed around a million people; the Great Bengal Famine of 1770 may have killed ten million. ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/67 "2016-12-12T21:34:42Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I disagree that it “doesn’t belong to me,” but let’s let that lie for the sake of argument. If I were give the option to opt out of Social Security, get NOTHING back from all of my past contributions, get NOTHING in the future, but STOP having them take money out of my paycheck? I’d still jump at that in a heartbeat. I can STILL invest my money better than the federal government can. I’ve got enough good years left in me that I can make up for all the money they’ve take from me against my will, and would happily have the thievery stop here and now. Are you so sure of that? Let’s suppose you’re making $118,500 per year – a number I picked because in 2016 that was the maximum income subject to FICA. Let’s assume that you receive 3.0% annual salary increases over the next 25 years, that you invest 6.5% of your salary every year, and that you get a return of 8%. At the end of 25 years you’ll have (if my math is correct) around $750,000. Your final salary will be about $241,000, so your nest egg will be about 3x your salary. Sure, $750k is a tidy sum. But remember that current projections are that health care alone are projected to cost a couple retiring today $266,000 over the course of their retirement. OK, that’s for a couple – but we’re also talking 25 years from now. What will your health care costs be? How much of the $750,000 will be left for you to live on? By comparison, the maximum Social Security benefit for 2017 is $32,244 per year. If that increases by 2% per year, your benefit would be about $51,860/year. Will your $750k provide you that if you live another 30 years? ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/68 "2016-12-12T22:05:50Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I don’t know about the US, but inadequate nutrition of the elderly and of those in need persists over here to this day. It was part of Mhairi Black’s [maiden speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZAmhB55_-k). (An absolutely cracking speech, BTW.) I dont think it was widespread starvation, but one of the explicit reasons to start Social Security back in the 30s was to combat malnutrition in the elderly. It was a recognized problem and Social Security was touted as at least a partial solution. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/69 "2016-12-12T22:34:17Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Even at the depths of the Depression, around 75% of American workers had jobs and regular income; however, soup kitchens and breadlines became a regular feature of the American landscape. Parts of California had good harvests (especially after the construction of Hoover Dam and other irrigation projects), even as the Midwest baked in the Dust Bowl. The harvests did little good since they were burned because so many people couldn’t buy them. At one point farmers were burning crops instead of coal and wood because it was cheaper and they couldn’t _sell_ it. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/70 "2016-12-12T22:47:33Z")
For those who checked in late. > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > This is a long, comprehensive [article](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109520630433518093)from the Wall Street Journal, too long to excerpt and do it justice. So here’s just one small quote from the middle: > > > [@](#): > > > > The Depression was a catastrophic blow to almost every American, but none more than the elderly. For many people, said Franklin Roosevelt in 1934, old age is “the most tragic of all hazards.” Thousands of old people from across the country wrote to Washington asking for help. “I’m a 60-year-old widow greatly in need of medical aid, food and fuel,” wrote a Virginia woman. “I pray that you would have pity on me.” > > > > Mrs. M.A. Zoller of Beaumont, Texas, begged for someone to help her 82-year-old mother, who, she wrote, was diabetic, “out of funds completely,” and had “no place to go unless it be to the poorhouse.” > > > > And over the hill to the poorhouse many older people went. Financed by local taxes, poorhouses were the shelters for all of a region’s indigent, and in the early 20th century, most counties had one. The best of the poorhouses provided a meager standard of living. The worst doubled as insane asylums and orphanages. “I was three miles from town but felt like I was 3,000 miles from friends and country,” wrote Ed Sweeney in his 1927 memoir, “Poorhouse Sweeney.” “I have ate off trays that looked like they had spent the rainy season laying on a city dump.” > > > > Germany, Sweden, France and England, among other countries, already had legislated publicly funded old-age insurance before Americans took up the debate. Proponents in the U.S. wondered why men and women who had been diligent, thrifty workers should suffer hunger and insecurity in their old age. In a letter to an editor, a postal worker pointed out that horses owned by the federal government lived out their old age on full rations. “For the purpose of drawing a pension,” he declared, “it would have been better if I had been born a horse than a human being.” > > > > Opponents argued that sensible people would provide for themselves, and that universal old-age insurance would set the country on the slippery slope to socialism. Children, not the state, were obliged to care for the old, they said; without that responsibility, family ties would loosen. And if employees were guaranteed lifetime support, wouldn’t they feel less incentive to work hard? > > … > > Sound familiar? ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/71 "2016-12-12T23:25:41Z")
If you abolish the Social Security System you’ll see crime you’ll never thought possible. What we have is abuse in the system. It need cleaning up and get the moochers off the dole. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/72 "2016-12-13T00:21:40Z")
> [@SigMan](#): > > If you abolish the Social Security System you’ll see crime you’ll never thought possible. What we have is abuse in the system. It need cleaning up and get the moochers off the dole. Social security is not “the dole”. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/73 "2016-12-13T01:24:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Social security is not “the dole”. I suspect that **SigMan** is referring to the moochers at the other end. Wealthy sociopaths and their families are a much greater burden on us than the poor are. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/74 "2016-12-13T01:50:26Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I suspect that **SigMan** is referring to the moochers at the other end. Wealthy sociopaths and their families are a much greater burden on us than the poor are. Precisely. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/75 "2016-12-13T02:59:03Z")
Ah, then I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/76 "2016-12-13T03:28:04Z")
> [@SigMan](#): > > If you abolish the Social Security System you’ll see crime you’ll never thought possible. What we have is abuse in the system. It need cleaning up and get the moochers off the dole. Granny gangsters? Let’s keep in mind that most people think of the retirement aspect of SS when they think of privatizing it. For example, just read the OP of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/77 "2016-12-13T05:41:56Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > If the Government were to pass a law where I could opt out of Social Security, getting back all of my contribution so far (even with no interest), and giving up any right to payments in the future, I would jump at that deal in a heartbeat. I can invest it better myself. > > Heck, even if the deal did NOT involve getting back my contributions, I’d go for it. Just STOP taking money out of my check, and leave me out of the program. I’d be delighted. How many people, as a percentage, do you think would do better at investing their money than social security? Maybe 10%? Because most people can’t save money, and of the few that can save money only a few actually invest that money. And even if most people really were able to save for retirement, what would you do about the people who didn’t? Or who invested in safe companies like Enron and with trusted people like Bernie Madoff? Even if millions were able to save for retirement, millions of others wouldn’t. So what happens to them? Starve to death in the gutter? Except that wouldn’t happen, would it? We’d have to take care of them, if only because we wanted to spare ourselves the effort of stepping over their corpses on our way to work. So since we’d have to have government pensions for the irresponsible, and since there are a lot of irresponsible idiots, possibly a majority of people, we’d have to have massive taxation to cover those people. And the people who did save their money are going to grumble about paying for the grasshoppers and getting nothing, right? And so it has to be universal, because otherwise it’s incredibly unfair to the ants. And so everyone, grasshopper or ant pays in, and everyone, grasshopper or ant gets an old age pension. Unless we want to go with the original version of the fable, where the ant laughs his ass off watching the grasshopper starve to death in the cold. As for the complaint that the current workers are paying to support current retirees, there is literally no other way that can work. What exactly do you think savings is? It’s a coupon that says “I have stored up this much value, now give me something of equal value”. Except if you save your money for retirement, and use that money to buy food, what exactly is happening? A farmer and a truck driver and a store clerk all had to bring you that food, by working. If everyone on Earth was given 10 million dollars and they all retired tomorrow, that money would be worthless. Money only has value because current workers are producing goods and services you can exchange money for. Without existing goods and existing services, that money doesn’t mean anything. Now, you can literally store capital. You can spend 10 years building a house, and then live in that house after it’s built, and you no longer have to build the house. You could get a giant pantry of canned goods, and eat those for the rest of your life. But most of the goods and services you consume during your retirement won’t work like that. You’ve created value over your working years, and now that you’re retired someone else is creating the value that you’re consuming. There’s no way around that. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/78 "2016-12-13T05:46:50Z")
Another reason I’m skeptical that this will go through. You can’t gerrymander senior citizens out of the population, and you do NOT want to fuck with a pissed off Grandma whose pension is about to be cut off. 😉 Seriously, I do believe they say that seniors tend to vote in record numbers. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/79 "2016-12-13T10:38:03Z")
The baby boomers are dying out so it won’t be long that the burden will taper off. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/80 "2016-12-13T13:58:27Z")
> [@SigMan](#): > > The baby boomers are dying out so it won’t be long that the burden will taper off. The baby boomers are just starting to retire. So we have a big hump to get thru. And SS isn’t _the_ big bugaboo. It’s a very big problem, but small time compared to Medicare costs over the next 30 years. Who knows what’s going to be on the other side after they actually do die off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381.md?page=5)