[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]
BG,
You keep harping about SAHMs, but miss the fact that they **are** working and providing very real benefits that have financial value. They are not *paid,* but they ARE working.
How much do you think it would cost to have someone watch/teach your kids 24/7, do all your cleaning, shopping, cooking, bill paying, managing the schedule, etc.? Even if you get the cheapest full-time nanny/maid/personal assistant, you’d be paying many tens of thousands of dollars per year. To get a very competent person (or multiple people, most likely) to do this 24/7 would cost nearly $100K/year on the open market.
