A Boring Dystopia

Reposting from another thread:

Social security has been 10-15 years away from being insolvent for 80 years. It will always be 10-15 years away from being insolvent because of the way it's calculated.

When the CBO or whoever scores it they can predict certain things like the number of recipients, the size of their payments, and inflation. They aren't allowed to take into account things that Congress may (but definitely will) do in the future, like raising the cap on social security taxes roughly with inflation. It went up from $160200 in 2023 to $168600 in 2024. This is a rare bipartisan, uncontroversial thing. Congress almost always follows the SSA recommendation exactly.

It would be more accurate to say "if the social security cap stays at $168600 for 10 years, social security will be insolvent."

The people pushing this bullshit know it's bullshit. They do it to make people think they'll never get social security so they can get enough voters on board with killing it, like they've been trying to do for 88 years.

Don't fall for it.

It is not going to "run out". That is republican talking point and propaganda. God damn that myth is believed by everyone.

The concepts of solvency, sustainability, and budget impact are common in discussions of Social Security, but are not well understood. Currently, the Social Security Board of Trustees projects program cost to rise by 2035 so that taxes will be enough to pay for only 75 percent of scheduled benefits. ^1

75% of benefits will still be paid in even the worse case scenario. The fear mongering is not necessary.

Those poor millionaires, being asked to contribute to society. How could you?!

$168,600

That's the cap. It is clearly and obviously only benefiting the rich. Absolutely insane.

No, it isn't. That's bullshit, a talking point designed to get you to give up on supporting it politically.

But do you know what would help it in actuarial terms? 2 things:

• raise the federal minimum wage

• remove the cap on income subject to the social security tax

When suppressing wages became a bipartisan affair, it hurt Social Security just as much as it did workers on the low end of the wage scale.

Everything else aside, social security is not going to run out in 10 years, all the doomsday is if we do NOTHING, but we never do nothing on social security. It's not going to end or "go bankrupt", this is all fear mongering BS that doesn't stand up to the smallest dose of objective reality.

So just to translate for non Americans: Social Security is a kind of guaranteed old age / retirement pension, by the looks of it.

not just social security. top income tax bracket is at the begining of 6 figures and of course there is a discount to corporate tax rates and if you don't make your money through labor.

it's not gonna run out.

it will be far worse, we'll all pay into social security and when we get it back it won't cover the cost of your monthly bread ration.

Stop spreading this BS. SS going bankrupt is misinformation.

What is the difference between a CEO and Santa Clause?

SS Works is

A poorly thought out tag

At least in principle, social security is a mandatory way of saving for retirement, not simply a tax. In that context, it makes sense that contributions are capped since payouts are capped.

As someone who hits the cap and lives in a place where even monthly premium payments for our healthcare have been scrapped, I am really sure it's time to open up BOTH of them again.

Sure, it's a cost. Sure, it's less cash in my pocket. But holy hell, we need to keep the cash going into the system so the next right-wing nutters can't gut the services via some "fiscal responsibility" bullshit.

Social Security doesn't have assets, it has debt obligations, which to the government, are something you can conjure out of thin air. The only senses in which it can "run out" is if outlays exceed receipts, or if it runs out of debt instruments to cash out and has to ask for a pile of more debt instruments.

Image Transcription: Twitter Post

Social Security Works, @SSWorks

A worker making $50,000 a year contributes to Social Security on 100% of their income.

A CEO making $20 million a year contributes to Social Security on less than 1% of their income.

It's time to scrap the cap!

Back in the 90s, people were saying the same thing. Al Gore even had an early internet meme made about him saying "lockbox" over and over.

Ten years later I looked into it, and the sense at that time was all the illegal immigrants were contributing in but didn't have a chance of taking the money out, and that saved it.

Did Trump screw us over by changing "catch and release" to "Wait on the other side of the border?"

"set to run out"

Source? Man I wish Lemmy could have developed its own culture without every miserable thing from r/All coming in here to peddle the usual toxic negativity from Reddit.

Worthless ass Twitter repost

Vote. Every. Time.

Many of the elderly retirees are already forced to choose between living in a vehicle or paying rent and starving. If SS is still a thing by the time im old enough to retire that monthly check wouldnt be enough to even afford a hyperinflated big mac let alone rent.