I’m not sure if we’re all included in “we,” but a lot of Boomers were screaming about that too. The people who fucked it up were of all age groups. The people who wanted to fix it were too.
But, it’s not a hard fix if lifting the cap will solve it.
How did you arrive at this range of years? Or is this a rhetorical suggestion?
That’s nice and all, but they still didn’t pay enough into the system. If they were screaming about it then, why aren’t they screaming about it now? Why did their scream of “tax me more” become “tax them more”? Since a benefit cut is the same as a higher tax on benefits, they should be all for cutting their own benefits, right?
Nobody said it was a hard fix. The problem is it’s an unfair fix. You’re basically saying “Hey, these people should’ve paid in more, but didn’t, so the fix is to make other people pay more instead.” I make more than the cap. I’m not interested in paying more money so that people your age, who underfunded it for decades and got away with paying less than their fair share, can continue to get benefits I’ll never see. We’re coming up short? Take it out of your pocket, not mine.
It’s rhetorical in the sense that it’s exactly people age 50 and older. If it were 2024 right now, I’d have said 1944 to 1974. Just a round number.
I’ve been hearing that ‘we’ll never see the benefits’ line for at least forty years. Pretty much all the people drawing benefits now, and for the last twenty years or longer, were told by a whole batch of people (not by the Social Security system) that we’d never see the benefits although we were paying out. Raise the cap, and you’ll get your benefits, too.
I think the best we can hope for is “rough justice”.
You can drive yourself crazy worrying if what you get compared to what you paid is fair when viewed against what someone else gets versus what they paid. For almost everyone, you pay a ton and get a little. If cutting me from $3,200 to $2,800 per month saves the system, have at it.
Is nobody in this thread aware that the wage cap rises nearly every year? In 2023 it rose $13,200 to $160,200. Raising it, say, $50k more wouldn’t feel all that unusual. Someone making that new cap of $210,200 would pay in $3100 dollars more. Big whoop.
Then we’re in agreement. Let’s write to Congress.
In the last 10 years, the cap has been raised by $46,500 and the world didn’t end.
I haven’t finished my 2022 taxes, but in 2023 I paid $125,699 in federal taxes. If I paid $128,799*… sure, whatever. Is this really a big sticking point? Really?? I’m cool with paying more to help the system not collapse someday. Why aren’t other high earners?
*yes, I know SS is broken out differently from regular taxes. Don’t fight the hypothetical. What’s the big deal?
I’m a Boomer, and they did ‘tax us more’ - it went into the Trust Fund.
As I understand the problem (and I may be wrong), the problem is that sometime in the future, current receipts won’t be enough to pay current expenditures. The theory is that benefits would be paid from the trust fund at that point.
Now, I know that the trust fund dollars were actually spent, and tapping that fund would require raising revenue from other sources (presumably income tax) or issuing more debt. And we Boomers can certainly be criticized for whatever the trust fund dollars were spent on - but (once again AIUI) the trust fund was supposed to make Social Security actuarially sound (or at least closer to that goal).
Bolding added. This is the part I don’t agree with. Boomers weren’t the only ones who voted over the past 40 years. And, more importantly, Boomers themselves had widely divergent ideas and agendas. Let’s narrow it down a little for clarity. I was born in 1961. Does it make sense to say “The people born in 1961 screwed up social security?”
In the spirit of some in this thread I propose that people age 50 and younger be denied the use of those things unless they agree to make up the difference in tax increases.
/ModestProposal
I believe that current SS expenses are already being paid from the trust fund, as was expected. The problem is that the trust fund is being depleted too quickly. Having more current revenue will extend the time until it gets too low.
And money in the trust fund went into buying bonds, which funded the government. It was never a lockbox that wasn’t touched until spend on benefits.
And that’s the real problem. For years SS was overtaxed versus the pay-as-you-go benefits going out. Which sounds like a sound idea to pre-fund the expenses needed when the big Baby boomer retirement bulge finally hits. And save that pre-funded money in a safe savings vehicle to be drawn back down later to pay benefits to the people who were overtaxed earlier. So far, so long-sighted and wise.
The problem was that instead of doing the above, they simply gave everybody a a tax cut on their income taxes and spent the SS overage on general stuff. And now here we are. Lots of those previously over-taxed folks want their benefits, the cupboard is bare, and the younger folks don’t see why they should be left holding / refilling that particular bag. Nor do I blame them for having that attitude.
There’s no good answer. Only some band answers and worse answers.
Band name!!
This is all pretty…inaccurate. For one thing, It’s not “sometime in the future,” it’s right now. Secondly, they were spent on treasury bonds, an investment. The SSA makes $60-$80 billion every year from this activity, about 5% of its receipts. It’s a profit. If you want to criticize the Federal budget, I’m sure we can all join you, but that’s another thread. Third, there’s no problem with the trust fund being “spent” or whatever. The problem is it’s underfunded and has been for 40 years.
No they didn’t spend the Social Security surplus on other things. They went into treasury bonds and will cash them out like every other investor. Congress did not “steal” one penny from SS. We saw the Baby Boomers coming and raised the tax to start accumulating surpluses so that today as the BB generation retires, money would be there.
So much of what you see posed on FB concerning SS is utter BS. The most common is the “Congress stole X$trillion from SS”. You also see people say “I paid for SS, it is not an entitlement”. Jesus Titty Fucking Christ, you paid into it, you’re entitled to it, why oh why do you get pissed off if someone calls what you are entitled to an entitlement?
“Entitled” has, for many people, come to have the meaning of, “having an expectation that you are owed something that you don’t deserve or did not earn.” And, thus, for them, it’s a negative word.
There’s actually a definition of “entitlement program” that distinguishes them from “discretionary programs”* - but people get pissed-off because a certain group has blurred the definitions so that a large number of people think "entitlement program " actually means “non-contributory program”. And they will be surprised the contributory entitlement programs are cut along with the non-contributory ones. The group that has blurred the definitions knows the difference perfectly well and could advocate cutting only non-contributory programs if they wanted to.
* An “entitlement program” is one where everyone who meets the requirements gets the benefit - for example, SS, Medicare, unemployment. Funding depends on the number of people eligible. . “Discretionary programs” have a certain level of funding and when the funding runs out, the benefits run out even if not everyone who is eligible is receiving benefits - this is how Section 8 waiting lists come about.
AIUI money borrowed from the trust fund went to buy federal government bonds, the interest from which going into the general fund. So the money wasn’t stolen, per se, but any proceeds it could have generated was.