# 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:** 5
**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, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/81 "2016-12-13T15:30:44Z")
> [@SigMan](#): > > The baby boomers are dying out so it won’t be long that the burden will taper off. This is nonsensical. The problem is that the proportion of workers to retirees is changing. That won’t change just because the baby boomers die off, we’re still going to have more and more retirees and fewer workers to support each retiree. We can’t save our way out of this, we can’t put money away to pay for this, for the same reason we can’t just give everyone in America a million dollars and have everyone retire. ---
**Author:** ![quimper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7c8e57/32.png) [@quimper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quimper)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/82 "2016-12-13T15:59:19Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > The money you and your employer contribute now doesn’t go into a piggy bank. It is used to pay current retirees. This is incorrect. It \*\*does \*\*go into a piggy bank and the piggy bank is \*\*growing \*\*(for now.) [The SS trust fund](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html) is around 2.8T and is growing. In 2015, the OASDI trust fund took in roughly 0.9T and disbursed roughly 0.8T. Yes, at some point the disbursements will outpace intake (the flip side of the demographic dividend) but by increasing the base rate and/or full retirement age the SS system can remain solvent for the next century, if there is political will to make it happen. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/83 "2016-12-13T16:02:56Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > 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. Which is why they won’t have it affect seniors, or anybody currently getting checks. People just under 50 will get seriously screwed by the proposed plan, but Grandma will still get her check. Even a few months ago, I’d have thought this was a non-starter, but recent events have made me question a lot of things I believed about how outrageously stupid things could get enough public support to be possible. ---
**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 13, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/84 "2016-12-13T16:13:06Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > 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. Fuck with? Perhaps not. Manipulate? Perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/85 "2016-12-13T16:31:24Z")
> [@quimper](#): > > This is incorrect. It \*\*does \*\*go into a piggy bank… The funds do not go into _your_ piggy bank. That is, Joe Plumber does not have SS taxes deducted from his paycheck, and they go into the Joe Plumber Social Security Retirement Account. They flow from the paycheck deductions, to the Trust Fund, to current retirees. (FWIW, there’s a separate trust fund for Disability.) ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/86 "2016-12-13T16:52:45Z")
One disadvantage of having SS be an explicit paycheck deduction is that people tend to think of it as their money. They think the deduction is going into their own piggy bank rather than being distributed out to the current beneficiaries. You see the same thing with school taxes, where people get upset about the deduction if they don’t have kids or aren’t planning to. There are several ways to think of abolishing SS: 1. Abolish the deduction, but keep the benefit 2. Keep the deduction, but abolish the benefit 3. Abolish the deduction and abolish the benefit 1&3 are the only options which have a chance. #3 is easy if we’re okay with the results of indigent old and disabled people having to fend for themselves. #1 could be done by increasing taxes. Get rid of the explicit deduction and raise everyone’s income taxes. Businesses would still need to kick in, so they would have to have a 6.25% employee tax. There could also be some changes to how the benefit was calculated. Rather than being based on how much you contribute, have it be more of a fixed value for basic income. If you are a high earner and contributed a lot, you should have used some of those high earnings to save for retirement. You get the same $X as everyone else. It might not be enough to keep you in a fancy condo, but it will allow you to live in basic housing. If SS wasn’t a line on the paycheck, people would feel less entitled to a bigger benefit if they made more money. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/87 "2016-12-13T18:05:24Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > One disadvantage of having SS be an explicit paycheck deduction is that people tend to think of it as their money. They think the deduction is going into their own piggy bank rather than being distributed out to the current beneficiaries. You see the same thing with school taxes, where people get upset about the deduction if they don’t have kids or aren’t planning to. Very much what I said upthread. SS is an income redistribution tax. I suspect it was marketed otherwise to increase support. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/88 "2016-12-13T19:06:42Z")
> [@quimper](#): > > This is incorrect. It \*\*does \*\*go into a piggy bank and the piggy bank is \*\*growing \*\*(for now.) [The SS trust fund](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4a3.html) is around 2.8T and is growing. In 2015, the OASDI trust fund took in roughly 0.9T and disbursed roughly 0.8T. Yes, at some point the disbursements will outpace intake (the flip side of the demographic dividend) but by increasing the base rate and/or full retirement age the SS system can remain solvent for the next century, if there is political will to make it happen. The second half of your post isn’t really connected to the first. There is no trust fund. It’s a total misnomer. As the trust fund was created, the Feds immediately reduced the ordinary income taxes of people and businesses by a corresponding amount, then borrowed and spent every penny that’s supposedly in the trust fund. Every last one. The trust fund today consists of 2.8T of promissory notes. Which say in effect “We, the US government, agree to raise income taxes on US citizens and businesses by 2.8T on top of what they already are, and on top of current SS taxes, to pay the SS benefits we’ve promised people.” If for some reason (what could it possibly be?) they’re unable to raise taxes that high then the “trust fund” will be shown to be what it really was. A gimmick that was gradually plundered throughout it’s life to fund a small reduction in income tax. These are facts, not polemic. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/89 "2016-12-13T21:35:58Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Der Trihs isn’t actually saying that millions starved during the Depression… He said millions starved and "social programs like Social Security … were put in after people did starve during the Great Depression. " So which millions starved? When? I think he’s posting false information, that he knows to be false. I invite him to clarify this. ---
**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, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/90 "2016-12-13T22:26:00Z")
Hard to say whether his statement is valid. [QUOTE=“[SSA — history] ([The Development of Social Security in America](https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p1.html))”]Throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century, there was a concerted movement for Mothers Pensions (the forerunner of what we would come to know as Aid to Families with Dependent Children). The first Mothers Pensions program appeared in 1911; 40 of the 48 states had such programs by 1920… The state old-age pension movement was the most active form of social welfare before Social Security. This movement was an attempt to persuade state legislatures to adopt needs-based pensions for the elderly. Lobbying for old-age pensions was well organized and was supported by a number of prominent civic organizations, such as the Fraternal Order of Eagles. State welfare pensions for the elderly were practically nonexistent before 1930, but a spurt of pension legislation was passed in the years immediately preceding passage of the Social Security Act, so that 30 states had some form of old-age pension program by 1935. Although old-age pensions were widespread, they were generally inadequate and ineffective… Although the Depression that began in 1929 affected virtually everyone in America, the elderly were especially hard hit. Older workers tended to be the first to lose their jobs and the last to be rehired during economically difficult times. In the pre–Social Security era, almost no one had any reliable cash-generating form of retirement security. Fewer than 10 percent of workers in America had any kind of private pension plan through their work… The majority of the nonworking elderly lived in some form of economic dependency, lacking sufficient income to be self-supporting. This extreme economic climate of the 1930s saw a proliferation of “pension movements,” most of which were dubious and almost certainly unworkable. The most well known of these radical pension movements was the Townsend Plan. It promised every American aged 60 or older a retirement benefit of $200 per month—at a time when the average income of working Americans was about $100 a month… However, the Great Depression is not the _reason_ for having a Social Security system; the reason is the problem of economic security in a modern industrialized society. The Depression was the _triggering_ event that finally persuaded Americans to adopt a social insurance system. [/QUOTE] The page describes SS as a Social **Insurance** program, which is really what it is. I pay my premiums and have no issues or incidents, so the money from my premiums goes to help people who _do_ have problems. But, of course, a certain group of loudmouths want to call it a ponzi scheme because of the way its funds flow (and because they dislike it). Really, taxes themselves are very analogous to insurance (at least, as long as they are not the old fashioned tribute-to-the-king kind of taxes). Insurance to favor a stable society. They do not always get used ideally, but I suspect that on average, they are a net positive. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/91 "2016-12-13T22:56:49Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > No. You’re asking for money that doesn’t belong to you. Why should the government give you free money? See the link in post #8. > > Let’s say you have auto insurance, and you’re paying $1,200 per per year (around the average rate in your ZIP code). You pay your premium for 30 years. Then one day you find you have enough money in the bank to cover the minimum legal liability amount required by law, and decide to opt out of auto insurance and put the funds in escrow as your insurance. You say to your insurance company, ‘I’ve paid you $36,000 for insurance over the years, and I’ve never made a claim. So I’m going to drop coverage and self-insure. Please send me my $36,000.’ They’re not going to do it. Your premiums pay for other drivers (plus overhead and profit) at the time you pay them. They’re not put into a piggy bank where you draw from them if you have a crash. > > So the options are to keep paying into SS and get nothing when you retire, or to stop paying into SS and let current retirees fend for themselves. You don’t get to opt out and be given free money. You pay $1200/yr for car insurance?? StG ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/92 "2016-12-13T23:08:57Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > You pay $1200/yr for car insurance?? I just found about the average rate paid by people in Tim’s ZIP code. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/93 "2016-12-13T23:30:10Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > You pay $1200/yr for car insurance?? > > StG Per car. That’s pretty typical around here. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/94 "2016-12-14T01:41:32Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You could abolish SS and require everyone to invest that amount of money in something like an IRA or 401(k) type investment. So they can be more efficiently looted during the next crash? Watching “The Big Short” left you with one takeaway. It\* will \*happen again. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/95 "2016-12-14T04:19:32Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Hard to say whether his statement is valid. Not hard at all. We either identify the millions that starved, or call the statement false. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/96 "2016-12-14T04:31:21Z")
There are two kinds of people who want to “privatise” Social Security — the gullible and the gullers. The flood of new money into an already-overpriced stock market will be a big boon for existing stockholders and the financial industry. It also fits well with other right-wing agenda like “Starve the Beast.” > [@Dinsdale](#): > > I have a hard time imagining how or why anyone would recommend that a wealthy developed nation not have some system similar to Social Security … You’re not from around here, are you? :rolleyes: > [@filmore](#): > > One alternative could be that your SS deductions mostly fund your own retirement. I’m going to divulge some uncomfortable facts. I’m tempted to put them in a Not-Safe Spoiler box, but we are all adults here. SocSec is an income _ **redistribution** _ program. :eek: (Call it “communist” or “Marxist” in post-rational American diction.) To just focus in one issue, based on the liberal egg-head idea that dead people don’t need money, it transfers money from the dead to _living_ people. Contrariwise, in _personal_ savings schemes, 95-year olds run out of money, while children who are fortunate enough to have their mom and dad die in their 60’s get rich! Yes, I know the SocSec abolishers would regard this as a feature not a bug — at present the gummint is Stealing (at gunpoint!) the SocSec money of my dead parents and giving it to undeserving teat-suckling 90-year olds! ---
**Author:** ![Elemenopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/97 "2016-12-14T05:32:53Z")
> [@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… Wherefore and hence? Therefore, and ergo… But seriously folks, here’s where I do get down to the nubbin between my political beliefs and the spoon-scraping actuality. Bear with me. I’ve been a (yeah, I’ll say it) housewife most of my life. A durned good one, I’d say. Put one husband through school via my hard work and yes, a bit of “under-the-table” pay, and got the second one out of crushing med school debt via smarts and thrift. But I’ve never paid much into SSI…personally. What happens when I get old and dreary, if our private finances go astray (and they are rather pitiful right now, I must admit.), But even worse, if we divorced and I’m, say, 45, with little accountable work history? Maybe I could get a job at Target or Burger King at this point… Do I just accept nothing while my (purported) ex claims full SSI and all the rest (all the 401k, 403b, whatever applied, that I was especially thrifty in order to pay the max into)? I forwent a career all these years and took care of 4 kids, but I’m left with nothing? I do worry about this sort of thing when I’m in my doldrums. And I know it must be a real issue to many people. Maybe even me, one day, who knows?! ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/98 "2016-12-14T05:51:02Z")
So if we don’t modify or repeal Social Security do we just wait until it becomes insolvent and collapses? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/99 "2016-12-14T06:31:55Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > So if we don’t modify or repeal Social Security do we just wait until it becomes insolvent and collapses? It’s easily modified, so we just fix the parts need fixing. No need for repeal or letting it collapse. We can always up the retirement age; people are living longer these days. We can increase taxes and contributions. We can add means testing: billionaires don’t need Social Security, but most of the rest of us do. It ain’t rocket surgery. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381/100 "2016-12-14T07:06:18Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > So if we don’t modify or repeal Social Security do we just wait until it becomes insolvent and collapses? Oh no. :smack: If we were in the Pit I’d have to associate your “information” source with the ongoing Fake News calamity. Because of reforms during America’s Pre-Loony Era, fiscal problems in SocSec are minor and mainly due to declining birth rates. They can be easily fixed with minor adjustments, e.g. to the ceiling on taxable income … or by welcoming young immigrants who will pay into SocSec. But do keep the “repeal … insolvent … collapses” coming! It does amuse. Next time you Google something try NOT clicking the [forbes.com](http://forbes.com) link. Medicare IS a more serious problem, though that is less due to the perverse liberal wish to keep humans alive than it is due to insane healthcare costs in America’s ultra-capitalist kleptocracy. At least no one’s mentioned “32 Trillion dollars with a T.” That’s the scare figure for a shortfall projected out to the end of the 21st century. Projections that distant of threats to the world’s great cities due to sea-level rise are laughed at, but boy do we want to privatize FDR’s Marxist invention! I’m surprised they don’t quote “shortfalls of Quadrillions of dollars (with a Q)” by projecting to the 39th century or beyond. Maybe they can’t because most of the people with the arithmetic skill to do that are playing for the Rational Thought team. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abolishing-social-security/774381.md?page=6)