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Nearly 1 in 4 Americans think they have a personal social security account

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Re: Nearly 1 in 4 Americans think they have a personal social security account

#3

Post by notKilgoreTrout »

mothballed wrote: post #2

I sure do. It's the youth of America. They'd had better pay me, because I paid someone else, so they owe me. Especially after I paid a few pittances in property taxes for their wonderful schools.

Unpaid the great generation for the work they did. Do newer generations deserve payment for theft (squandering investments, privatizing, destroying education and safety nets)?

Re: Nearly 1 in 4 Americans think they have a personal social security account

#4

Post by cj »

Statistics like this are a pet peeve of mine. And to see a whole article filled with "x% of people think Y" is not that interesting.

But honestly I'm pretty impressed that ~50% of people understand that social security payments today are funding current retirees, and not future retirees. The fact that only 25% think the opposite, and 25% don't know, is actually pretty impressive.

Re: Nearly 1 in 4 Americans think they have a personal social security account

#6

Post by abeppu »

The juxtapositions in here are interesting:

- Most Americans don't know how social security is funded but

- An overwhelming majority of nonretired adults (79%) do not believe they will receive their full scheduled Social Security benefits when they retire.

- About three in four adults (77%) have heard that Social Security is projected to run short of money by 2033.

If you thought you had an individual account, and you also thought the program overall was going to run out of money and that you weren't going to get the "full benefit", does that mean you thought you weren't paying enough in?

Re: Nearly 1 in 4 Americans think they have a personal social security account

#7

Post by y-curious »

abeppu wrote: post #6

The juxtapositions in here are interesting: - Most Americans don't know how social security is funded but - An overwhelming majority of nonretired adults (79%) do not believe they will receive their full scheduled Social Security benefits when they retire. - About three in four adults (77%) have heard that Social Security is projected to run short of money by 2033. If you thought you had an individual account, and yo…

I was just having a conversation (argument) with my MIL about this. She claims that people have felt that SS would run out of money before they retire her entire life. Has this sentiment been tracked at all? I certainly feel like I (aged mid-30s) will not be benefitting, but the common argument is that the Ponzi scheme will find a way to perpetuate for longer

Re: Nearly 1 in 4 Americans think they have a personal social security account

#9

Post by jgbuddy »

mothballed wrote: post #2

I sure do. It's the youth of America. They'd had better pay me, because I paid someone else, so they owe me. Especially after I paid a few pittances in property taxes for their wonderful schools.

You paying someone is not the fault of the previous generation, it's the fault of policymakers implementing a pyramid scheme

Re: Nearly 1 in 4 Americans think they have a personal social security account

#10

Post by dersch »

This is an interesting topic that is also a very current one in the Netherlands: https://business.gov.nl/finance-and-taxes/pensions/the-new-p...

Where they've essentially implemented the system as the 1 in 4 American think it works in the USA. Specifically:

> It will become clearer how your pension or your employee’s pension grows. Employees will have their own pension account, showing all the contributions they have paid. And the profit or loss made with this money.

It will be interesting to see if this works out as they've calculated/predicted.

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