Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cato.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 49 posts

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

#31

Post by andrewl »

rvschuilenburg wrote: post #22
dersch wrote: post #10

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…

I'm not from the US, so please correct me if i'm wrong. My understanding is that the Social Security in the US is more comparable to our "AOW". And our AOW is not changing. Our pensions are more comparable to the 401K in the us.

Where do you live, and what does AOW stand for? There's no way to say whether your comparison is correct without having any idea of what you're comparing Social Security to.

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

#32

Post by wang_li »

bena wrote: post #20
Jordan_Pelt wrote: post #17

I can go to ssa.gov and click the button that says "log into your account."

Yeah, we can't really fault people for thinking something the government itself says.

The phrasing doesn’t make sense anyway. I think I have an individual social security account where they track how much I’ve paid and how much that will entitle me to receive. I also think I have an individual savings account with my bank, and an individual investment account with my brokerage. In none of these perceptions do I think there is a little bin with my money in it stored separately from everyone else’s money.

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

#33

Post by rkomorn »

andrewl wrote: post #31
rvschuilenburg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not from the US, so please correct me if i'm wrong. My understanding is that the Social Security in the US is more comparable to our "AOW". And our AOW is not changing. Our pensions are more comparable to the 401K in the us.

Where do you live, and what does AOW stand for? There's no way to say whether your comparison is correct without having any idea of what you're comparing Social Security to.

Context suggests they live in the Netherlands and are talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algemene_Ouderdomswet .

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

#34

Post by happytoexplain »

As usual, I don't think the conclusion of the survey is fully supported by the way the questions were worded. I'm not sure I've ever felt differently about a survey, in fact.

For example, if I was asked the second question, I honestly don't know which way I would have responded before being told the answer, because clearly the answer is in between the two options. Obviously it is not intended to "largely replace" your income, but also obviously it is not intended to only keep you above the poverty line, since it is based on your income during your life. So yes, it very concretely "replaces" your income, but only partially, not "largely". If it was only intended to keep you above the poverty line, it would be based on the poverty line.

Even the government phrases it as "replacing" income:

https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10024.pdf

> Social Security replaces a percentage of a worker’s pre-retirement income

Reading survey questions drives me insane.

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

#35

Post by cjbgkagh »

mothballed wrote: post #18
cjbgkagh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with that. There is a generational conflict coming, and in many ways it’s already here. At some point young people are going to be asked to pay more in taxes in order to bail out social security and it’ll radicalize them more than they are already. Given the option of bail out grandma or burn down the whole system don’t be surprised when they chose to burn it down. I think it’ll look a bit like the collapse…

Sorry sonny, I'm afraid I've rezoned the entire USA to basically ban building the amount of housing needed, and by the way we locked all our houses into long term mortgages at negative real interest rates you'll never see again so we will inflate away your money via the fed to pay for our house. I'll let you lower social security, but if you want someplace to stay you'll have to pay me a gazillion dollars or perform…

Ah yeah, you got me, I do get a bit triggered by boomerisms.

As a millennial I could already see the ladder being pulled away and was luckily enough to grab on to the bottom rung. Young people are so ready to burn down the system that they’re just waiting for the opportunity to do so and I don’t blame them. At this point it only seems to be a matter of time. I try to warn boomers that they should be more sympathetic because they’re going to have to ask the young people for a bailout and as bad as it is doing deliveries for minimum wage as a young person it’s infinitely worse doing that as a old person.

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

#36

Post by wang_li »

rpdillon wrote: post #16
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #11

I've been told by the libertarians since the early 80s that social security was running out of money, and back then I fully believed that the program would be gone by the time I retired. Yet somehow Congress manages to tweak it as necessary to keep it solvent. I expect they will continue to do so.

In 2034, it will be insolvent. We'll either increase contributions or raise the age to compensate. It's not going to be pretty.

They’ve been raising the contribution limit for several years now. In 2016 the cut off on taxable earnings for social security was $118,500. Next year it’s $186,000.

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

#37

Post by gizmo686 »

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…

Having an individual account does not mean that money earmarked for you is sitting in a vault. E.g, our banking system gives everyone an individual account, but does not have enough cash to pay everyone back; and occasionally their other assets fall, resulting in them not being able to satisfy their obligations to account holders. This has happened often enough, that bank accounts are not required to be insured against it.

There has also been a common talking point of Congress stealing from social security to fund other expenses, which could also explain how it would not be able to pay even with individual accounts.

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

#38

Post by gedy »

bluGill wrote: post #29
gedy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking to everyday people you need to realize that many many folks count on this govt pension and Medicare to live at all when they can't work. It's not an option. Company pensions are long gone, and 401Ks are only somewhat recently starting to take hold on younger people as a must have.

401k already covers more people than pensons ever did. and that is before we account for the pre-reform cases where the pension lost it all. (Though some 401k is lost to scams)

"covers" is pulling a lot of weight here, I know a lot of folks with pretty small balances, and/or who "had" to withdraw due to medical or other emergencies. They need a govt pension, otherwise we are going to have a lot of people on the streets.

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

#40

Post by while_true_ »

CATO gets it wrong too. Social Security is an insurance program. Employer and employee payments function as insurance premiums. Like most insurance policies if you don't qualify for a disbursement you don't get your premiums back (e.g., you die before 62). Unlike normal insurance, Soc Sec has no coverage limit, so if you live to 105 you can collect far more than you paid in.

Since Soc Sec is income insurance, I am opposed to the flat benefit concept. Higher incomes pay higher premiums so they should get higher payouts. We already have some benefit flattening now because Soc Sec benefits are partially taxable above $25K single/$32k married.

Post reply on HN