Woman at Walmart lectures a father using Food Stamps.

[bienville]

@Guinastasia

(Personally, I think him saying, “fuck you bitch” was far, far less disgusting than having to listen to her rant. Hell, I heard far worse language from my grandmother)

Fuck your bitch of a grandmother.

[excavating_for_a_mind]

@Miller

…Learning when to say, “Fuck it,” and walk away from an unreasonable person is a useful skill.

Which almost nobody on this board possesses.

I suspect far more members and guests exercise this skill than you are aware of. (I almost didn’t even post this).

[Annie-Xmas]

When I was on the EBT system, I got two comments: Once when I bought some cheap diet drink mix (You could drink water for free) and once when I bought a half-price cake (I wish I could use a card to buy junk food. I said "Well, it’s for my birthday, for crying out loud. She shut up).

I was trying to use the card the day the whole system went down. When it wouldn’t go through, the store cashier said very nastily “Can’t you pay some other way?” I immediately sought out the manager and told him about the cashier’s rudeness and total insensitivity. “She could be on EBT some day.”

[Grrr]

I learned a new phrase today reading YouTube comments:

"Thunder Cunt"

I’m not normally a fan of the word cunt. But this particular phrase, especially as it pertains to this bitch, makes me smile.

[jasg]

@BobLibDem

I took my latest Social Security benefits statement and did some simple calcs with back of the envelope accuracy.

If I take the total amount I paid into SS to date and divided it by my estimated benefit at age 62, I get it all back in 67 months, neglecting interest. Of course I’ve got a few years of contributions yet to put in there but it seems to me that at the very least, if I live more that 6-7 years past retirement, I’ll be getting back all that I put in. I don’t know how long the average guy lives into retirement, but I’d be surprised if most didn’t live at least that long. If you have a 20+ year retirement, you’re getting back way more than you put in.

@Wesley_Clark

It depends on how much you pay in, SS has a progressive payment plan where the less you earn, the more you get back.

Assume you earn 50k a year for 40 years. You pay 124k and your employer pays 124k. You retire at 65 and die at 85. With 50k a year in income you will get about 1347 a month in SS payments, over 20 years that is 323k. These are all adjusted amounts for simplicity.

If you earn 10k a year, you will get back more than you paid into SS. you’ll pay 50k in and get 123k out.

If you earn 100k and pay SS taxes for 40 years, you will have paid 496k and you will get 492k back over 20 years.

Both very good - another way to look at SS retirement benefits is to compare it to an immediate annuity that would pay out your expected monthly benefit.

Also, don’t forget the insurance aspect of SS. It provides you with a monthly benefit if you become disabled and payments to surviving family members if you die.

In sum, it is much more than supplemental retirement program (and was never described or intended to be a full retirement benefit)

[Bricker]

To my way of thinking, the benefit from Social Security is not the return on investment, but the mandatory nature of the plan. As an ideal, I would prefer the government let me keep all my money and gave me the responsibility to provide for my own future.

But the reality is that if we do that, many people will not do so, or do so only incompetently. And our society is not the kind of society that would let people starve, even though they accepted responsibility for that possible outcome. In other words, if they fail, we must take care of them anyway, so forcing them to pay makes sense.

[Slash1972]

@Bricker

To my way of thinking, the benefit from Social Security is not the return on investment, but the mandatory nature of the plan. As an ideal, I would prefer the government let me keep all my money and gave me the responsibility to provide for my own future.

But the reality is that if we do that, many people will not do so, or do so only incompetently. And our society is not the kind of society that would let people starve, even though they accepted responsibility for that possible outcome. In other words, if they fail, we must take care of them anyway, so forcing them to pay makes sense.

Well said! Can I steal this (with a few tweaks) to explain to some people why mandatory health insurance is a good idea?

[Dinsdale]

post deleted

[Evil_Economist]

@octopus

Population doesn’t even have to grow. Wealth per capita just needs to be generated and the money in the fund invested properly.

Social Security is essentially a pass-through system. That is, it takes contributions by people who are currently working and hands them to the currently retired. We’re currently in a bit of an unusual case where there’s a surplus, so the surplus could theoretically be invested, but the surplus is intended to be temporary to account for the baby boomer generation. In a theoretical model of a stable society there’s no surplus at all, and the government acts purely as a clearinghouse.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Miller

I’m pretty okay with it. Not all conflicts can be resolved, or are worth resolving. Learning when to say, “Fuck it,” and walk away from an unreasonable person is a useful skill.

Which almost nobody on this board possesses.

I resent that remark and am prepared to explain why at length.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Bricker

You’re comparing what was paid in to what gets paid out straight dollar for dollar.

But the present value of $100 is $100. The future value of that $100 is more than $100. So if I pay in $100 today and get it back in 25 years, that’s not an even exchange.

Those figures are adjusted for inflation.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Bricker

Ok.

I was talking about Social Security. Medicare is indeed different – no cap, as you say, so that allows the model of a comparatively few wealthy people covering many middle class people. I agree that Medicare, for the average person, will pay out more than they paid in.

You said ‘many people get back only a fraction of what they pay in to Medicare and Social Security’. People get back more than they paid into medicare, and they pretty much break even with social security.

[Bricker]

@Wesley_Clark

Those figures are adjusted for inflation.

So what?

Present value and future value are not based only on the inflation rate.

[Bricker]

@Slash1972

Well said! Can I steal this (with a few tweaks) to explain to some people why mandatory health insurance is a good idea?

No. For gosh sakes.

OK, yes, but not with my name on it.

Seriously – go ahead. I don’t endorse that use unreservedly, because I think there is a distinction to be made between the two, but I agree it’s a legitmate point in favor of mandatory health insurance. (And of course “mandatory health insurance,” is not the same as “public-funded mandatory health insurance,” but that too is another issue).

[Bricker]

@Wesley_Clark

You said ‘many people get back only a fraction of what they pay in to Medicare and Social Security’. People get back more than they paid into medicare, and they pretty much break even with social security.

No, many people don’t break even with Social Security.

Can you give a brief statement of your understanding of how to calculate the present and future value of money?

[Dinsdale]

@Bricker

No, many people don’t break even with Social Security.

First you said MANY people do not get their money back. Then you said MOST. Then you said EVERY PERSON is paid more than they pay in. And now you are back to MANY people not breaking even.

I’m pretty sure you don’t know what you are talking about, but it is hard to tell what you think you are saying.

With SS old age benefits, if you live long enough, you get back everything you contributed and more, plus interest. If you don’t, you don’t. How is that so complicated.

I firmly believe that SS’s greatest flaw may be in not admitting openly that it is a tax, with a significant element of income/wealth redistribution. Of course, how we got to this point from the original food stamps discussion, I’m not sure.

[octopus]

@Evil_Economist

Social Security is essentially a pass-through system. That is, it takes contributions by people who are currently working and hands them to the currently retired. We’re currently in a bit of an unusual case where there’s a surplus, so the surplus could theoretically be invested, but the surplus is intended to be temporary to account for the baby boomer generation. In a theoretical model of a stable society there’s no surplus at all, and the government acts purely as a clearinghouse.

Where does the government keep the surplus? Shouldn’t it be invested like an insurance company would?

[Bricker]

@Dinsdale

First you said MANY people do not get their money back.

Yes.

Then you said MOST.

I did? That would have been careless on my part.

Then you said EVERY PERSON is paid more than they pay in.

I did? Where?

With SS old age benefits, if you live long enough, you get back everything you contributed and more, plus interest. If you don’t, you don’t. How is that so complicated.

Not complicated at all. I agree completely.

So to merge your accurate observation and my comment: what percentage of people live long enough to receive back everything they contributed, adjusted for future value?

I firmly believe that SS’s greatest flaw may be in not admitting openly that it is a tax, with a significant element of income/wealth redistribution. Of course, how we got to this point from the original food stamps discussion, I’m not sure.

I agree with your firm belief.

[BobLibDem]

@octopus

Why are you neglecting interest?

I’m not sure it adds to the accuracy. Some of your payroll tax is for the SS part of the equation and part is for the DI part of the equation. I don’t happen to know how much each of these comprises of your payroll tax. Adding interest only makes sense if I know how much of the payroll tax goes to SS.

@octopus

Where does the government keep the surplus? Shouldn’t it be invested like an insurance company would?

It’s invested in treasury bills by law. The Republicans wanted to place these giant chips on the roulette wheel of private investments years ago but thankfully did not win the day.

[Dinsdale]

@Bricker

Yes.
I did? That would have been careless on my part.
I did? Where?
<snip>

So to merge your accurate observation and my comment: what percentage of people live long enough to receive back everything they contributed, adjusted for future value?

Posts 8, 15, 44.

SS used to post on their site actuarial data, including how long it would take to recover contributions. Last time I looked at it (a few years ago) they used 3 different projections for rate of return. If you are interested, that would be a good place to start.

I don’t know to what extent they compared such returns with life expectancies of various populations such as:
-how many unmarried workers with no kids die before retiring, therefore getting back zero;
-how many poor, never employed old people receive benefits but never contributed anything;
-the life expectancies of what we might consider the “standard case”, a worker who paid in throughout a consistent working career, and retires when eligible for benefits.
Figure in survivors’ and disabled benefits, and this non-mathematician would see the equation getting awfully complicated awfully quickly.

As someone posted upthread, it is pretty easy to look at your own SS statement and make a rough calculation as to how long you need to draw bennies to make back your contribution (plus interest). My personal observation is that in making those calculations, many folk figure they would have been more reliable savers and more savvy investors than the average American seems to be.