Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 16:35:29 GMT -5
Fuck that, I'd be millionare if my 12.5% was going into an index fund, but of course it doesn't work that way. My contributions are immediately paid to my grandparents there's nothing left over to invest. Yeah, I remember when Bush (forget which) was trying to come up with some way to allow people to divert some of their SS contributions into individual accounts instead of paying it iinto the general pot. The cash need for paying current recipients was so great that only a tiny % of a current worker's payroll could have been diverted to an individual plan- so the idea died.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 11, 2013 16:39:48 GMT -5
Bush Jr, and that was a big part of the reason I voted for him in 2000. It was only going to be something like 3% of my contribution that would go into my private account, but at least it was something. Well that and Al Gore is a robot.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 17:30:02 GMT -5
Married people get screwed, too. I'm less sure of Athena's DH, but mine's SS is only taxable because he is married to me. It is his sole source of retirement income. (No idea why so let's not go there.) It's actually pretty good. He waited until he was almost 67 to retire and gets $2300 a month. It's not a fortune, but it helps.
On the other hand, I am one of those people Crone's trying to describe who doesn't have thirty-five years. I'm not sure if I will even have thirty-five years when I retire at FRA. I worked, but graduate students' stipends aren't subject to SS tax.
I have no problem with closing loopholes like switching to your own benefit later. They've closed loopholes before. I received SS benefits while I was in college. They haven't done that in decades. Maybe the non-working spouse's benefit is a loophole they need to close as well. But you have to phase stuff like this in, just as they did the increased retirement age.
Personally, I think they need to get rid of the "early retirement" at age 62. With the advances in lifespan, that's a serious part of the problem. I do understand that some workers must retire because their jobs are too physically demanding. But I'm going to parrot the argument that is always used when we talking about a livable minimum wage. Just as flipping burgers is not a career path, neither is construction or lawn service. It pays good money when you are at your physical peak, but you can't do it forever.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 18:16:10 GMT -5
Married people get screwed, too. I'm less sure of Athena's DH, but mine's SS is only taxable because he is married to me. It is his sole source of retirement income. (No idea why so let's not go there.) <snip> Personally, I think they need to get rid of the "early retirement" at age 62. <snip> Yeah, that was a nasty shock. DH had a 2-year period of unemployment during which he managed to pay CS, spent more than he made for a couple of years trying to get competent medical care for a SD with serious asthma (she's now alive and managing it well) and in the years before I met him he'd proped up a financially irresponsible girlfriend and taken in his elderly mother. So, he pretty much spent what he had taking care of people. Last year I was entering numbers into TurboTax and when I added his SS income it increased our tax liabilities by $7K. Just like magic. I have mixed feelings about the early retirement feature. Apparently there's been a rash of early SS filings since the economy tanked because people lose a job, can't find another and decide to retire even though they hadn't planned to. You wonder what would happen to them if SS weren't there. Some might try harder to find jobs but others might end up in poverty.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 19:34:39 GMT -5
@athena53 said:
And if SS is your only source of income then you are mostly in poverty. My father took early SS. I know he gets food stamps and I'm pretty sure that if he wasn't living with his girlfriend he would qualify for Section 8 housing.
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Gardening Grandma
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Post by Gardening Grandma on Aug 11, 2013 19:53:21 GMT -5
Bush Jr, and that was a big part of the reason I voted for him in 2000. It was only going to be something like 3% of my contribution that would go into my private account, but at least it was something. Well that and Al Gore is a robot. One of the reasons I did NOT vote for him. That and the fact that he was unqualified and a bald faced liar.
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tallguy
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Post by tallguy on Aug 12, 2013 0:07:03 GMT -5
I'm not sure that is the case. The payout schedule is designed so that the total lifetime payout should be roughly the same no matter when benefits are claimed. I have seen the break-even point listed variously between about 78-82, or at roughly the average life expectancy. For people living longer than that, they receive more if they delayed claiming benefits. Them claiming early actually ends up costing the system less money, since their checks are lower each month. Or are you arguing some other point that I missed?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2013 7:03:14 GMT -5
The payout schedule is designed so that the total lifetime payout should be roughly the same no matter when benefits are claimed.<snip>Them claiming early actually ends up costing the system less money, since their checks are lower each month. Or are you arguing some other point that I missed? You're right that the reduced benefit should compensate for the longer payout period- but it's putting more pressure on the system because of the increased cash flows now (remember, this is closer to pay-as-you-go with an inadequate "trust fund", not real insurance). I also wonder how accurately they reflected adverse selection in that reduction. It's not just the longer payout period due to starting to collect early- it's that people who expect to live longer will delay filing benefits, and the ones who expect to live a shorter time (family history or chronic health issues) start collecting early. The mortality of the 2 populations is different.
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Aug 12, 2013 11:13:40 GMT -5
I feel the current system goes against the original intent of social security, which was old age/disability/survivor benefits for WORKERS. Not sure what you are saying - the spouse is a survivor - so covered under "old age/disability/survivor". And if you are not including the spouse - the original intent to was to benefit the workers family, which includes their spouse. For the umpteenth time, I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT SURVIVORS!
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Aug 12, 2013 11:27:41 GMT -5
I'd be interested to know what percentage of retirees collect early or not.
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Aug 12, 2013 11:29:48 GMT -5
Yes, exactly. And that also applies to ex-spouses as long as you meet the qualifying conditions (married for at least ten years, not currently married again, etc....) So if you do NOT claim early (before FRA) you have more options. Claim on the spouse's record at FRA, let your benefits grow until you hit 70, then switch to your own. If you claim early benefits on a spouse's record, you cannot switch to your own benefits later. Ex spouses collecting SS is another can of worms. In theory, you could have 3 or 4 non contributing spouses collecting on a single contributors account.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2013 12:09:20 GMT -5
Yes, exactly. And that also applies to ex-spouses as long as you meet the qualifying conditions (married for at least ten years, not currently married again, etc....) So if you do NOT claim early (before FRA) you have more options. Claim on the spouse's record at FRA, let your benefits grow until you hit 70, then switch to your own. If you claim early benefits on a spouse's record, you cannot switch to your own benefits later. Ex spouses collecting SS is another can of worms. In theory, you could have 3 or 4 non contributing spouses collecting on a single contributors account. you have to have been married for at least 10 years to collect on a spouses account.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 12, 2013 12:14:20 GMT -5
Say you get married at 20, and divorced at 30, over three decades later you should still be eligible to get half your ex spouses SS?? The way the system is set up now you'd be eligible.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Aug 12, 2013 12:55:48 GMT -5
Say you get married at 20, and divorced at 30, over three decades later you should still be eligible to get half your ex spouses SS?? The way the system is set up now you'd be eligible. There are other restrictions, like you can't have remarried before about age 60, but yes someone could conceivably have five ex's who could draw on their SS. In the the real it doesn't happen often for someone to have more than two spouses drawing on their SS. And cosidering how much less often people are getting married it will eventually get less and less common for anyone to draw as a spouse let alone multiple ex's..
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 12, 2013 13:03:36 GMT -5
Oh good, another government rule that encourages people to live in sin and work the system. Because we didn't have enough already.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Aug 12, 2013 13:06:45 GMT -5
Oh good, another government rule that encourages people to live in sin and work the system. Because we didn't have enough already. This is one of the parts that has been around since the thirties. It isn't new. And for the record I was reading on the SSA site and according to them people are getting married less and as a result claiming spousal benefits less.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 12, 2013 13:12:48 GMT -5
Right and it made sense then because women didn't work. If a husband left his wife she would be destitute. Now that women can earn their own paycheck I'm not sure it's still needed.
It's like those old laws from the wild west that never get taken back off the books. You can't park your wagon on Main St on Saturdays, because back in 18xx that was market day, the day the bank wagon came through, or whatever, and they didn't want the street blocked by farmer john's wagon. It made sense at the time, but now it's an outdated relic of a time that no longer exists.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Aug 12, 2013 13:20:02 GMT -5
Right and it made sense then because women didn't work. If a husband left his wife she would be destitute. Now that women can earn their own paycheck I'm not sure it's still needed. It's like those old laws from the wild west that never get taken back off the books. You can't park your wagon on Main St on Saturdays, because back in 18xx that was market day, the day the bank wagon came through, or whatever, and they didn't want the street blocked by farmer john's wagon. It made sense at the time, but now it's an outdated relic of a time that no longer exists. I'm so not searching the internet for the numbers again but we went over that. The numbers for women's particpation in the work force leveled out in the 80's. What is left is the hard truth that woman have babies. Because of that they take time off and consistantly make less than men on a per job basis. Maybe that will change in a few decades but for now women are going into retirement with less than the 35 years needed to not have zeros in their SS calcs while men rarely have zero years used. Not to mention the whole making .80 cents on the dollar.
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souldoubt
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Post by souldoubt on Aug 12, 2013 13:28:18 GMT -5
Like I said on here years ago I would gladly sacrifice my contributions for the last 15+ years and my employers contribution going forward if it meant I could keep/invest what I contribute to SS going forward. Obviously that won't happen for reasons stated throughout this thread but I can dream at least.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Aug 12, 2013 13:28:31 GMT -5
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 12, 2013 13:29:11 GMT -5
The male labor force participation rate isn't 100%. It's a pension system, if you don't work you don't get benefits. If some women choose not to work, that shouldn't entitle them to a pension for retired workers. The same way a man who chooses not to work will have zero years in his benefit calculations. Which takes 6-12 weeks out of the workforce per child depending on how easy the pregnancy and recovery is. My mom had five of them, and raised us on her own or while also dealing with an abusive addict for a spouse. She'll still have 35 years in the workforce between the ages of 18 and 66. Which is actually .97 cents on the dollar when you account for choices like voluntarily working fewer hours, going into lower paying fields, and avoiding STEM degrees. There was that study last year that found that professional women actually make 3 or 4 cents on the dollar more than men in several large US cities, which makes sense because they've been enrolling in higher education at higher rates than men for a decade now.
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justme
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Post by justme on Aug 12, 2013 13:31:56 GMT -5
Actually, I think you just need to be divorced when you apply. So if a person was married twice for at least 10 years each and is currently divorced she can collect on whichever benefit is bigger - hers, husband #1, or husband #2. asklizweston.com/spousal-vs-survivor-benefits-a-primer/
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wodehouse
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Post by wodehouse on Aug 20, 2013 13:42:30 GMT -5
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