[quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]BG, what you say about gen before you will be what us Gen X/Y will say about your generation. I can say with a certainty your generation will live longer than the gen before you. You’ll have access to stuff like, new cancer treatments, new AIDS treatments, new body party replacements using your own stem cell, etc. So, yes, on average, Boomers WILL live longer than their parents. So, you will use more than you put in to SS.[/quote]
I agree that we will live longer than WWII and Greatest Gen (not too many of these folks left). All I’m saying is that we put a LOT more into “the system” than our forebears did and are the first generation who very well may not see our “investment” come back to us in full. This is due to overpaying recipients who shouldn’t have qualified to get as high a benefit as they did and allowing some recipients to base their benefits on another’s work record when they didn’t contribute to “the system” themselves. I don’t care what anybody says. At all times after WWII, it was a personal choice of an individual (usually female) to stay out of the workforce for life. There are other ways to take care of someone until death who never worked and was never able to save anything for retirement. In other countries, the financial duty to care for indigent senior citizens falls on their family … as it should be. That same family benefited from the care and attention that (now indigent) non-working parent was able to give them when they were growing up.
Believe it or not, I am against “means testing” for OASDI benefits. A high-paid worker and/or worker with a long career deserves his/her SS based upon their contributions.
Since OASDI is funded by FICA employer and employee contributions, it should be used solely to help fund the retirements of those workers who contributed to it and no one else.[/quote]Unless you agree to stop SS payment upon complete drainage of the $ you put in, then it makes no difference if you put in $5 and get $10 in SS or $5k and get $5005 from SS. This is why I mentioned that your generation will most likely out live your parents’ generation. Which means your generation will most likely extract more from SS than your parents’ generation. Even if you put in more. There are a lot more exotic procedures today to keep you alive and I’m assuming that there will be even more in the future. So, how much you put in doesn’t matter as much as how much you take out from the system.[/quote]
AN, that’s easy for you to say because you have only been working a few years. I’d like to hear how you feel about the matter 30 years from now … after reviewing your annual SS report :=0
We didn’t put in “a little more” than our parents did. Collectively, boomers probably put in 8-12 times as much as both Greatest Gen and WWII Gen combined! Remember that payroll FICA deductions (not sure they were called that back then) didn’t start until 1935 or 1936.
The amount one “extracts” from the system is directly proportionate to how much they (or their “sponsor”) put into it. The problem is that it has minimum payments ($380 mo? regardless of contribution) and most of its current beneficiaries are overpaid every month in proportion to their contributions.
I am MORE than okay with taking my and my employers’ contribution as a lump sum when I am eligible for it, in lieu of a monthly “annuity.” I don’t even care whether they pay me any interest for all those years.
Actually, I think we should have the option of taking a lump sum of our contributions at 62. I’ve seen too many people die after working their entire lives without collecting a dime (exc spouse $250 benefit).
I can manage whatever amt it is from there. At least I will have collected it.
