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No, Elon Musk, Social Security Isn’t a “Ponzi Scheme” (inthesetimes.com)

submitted 2 days ago by TokenBoomer@lemmy.world to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world

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Right-wing billionaires have long wanted to shred the safety net. Under Trump, they’re using lies and fears over the deficit to debilitate Social Security.

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[–] FMT99@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's an "investment" the same way insurance is an investment. We "invest" in social stability. Lots of people never make it to retirement age, for them SS is likely a net loss.

But as a society we like the idea that the elderly don't go homeless if they don't have means of their own. We like that people who lose their jobs don't lose their daily bread. That's why we have social security. And we accept that in some cases we're the ones that end up paying a bit more than we're getting.

[–] Sludgeyy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

You are trying to argue if SS is good or bad.

I agree that the idea behind SS is a good one

Lots of people never make it to retirement age. For them, SS is likely a net loss

A lot of people are living longer collecting SS for longer. One of the reasons it's failing. One of the reasons they keep pushing the retirement age up.

Imagine making ~15k a year. Paying 1k per year for SS. And then never collecting it.

Someone making minimum is paying 1/15 of their pay for SS

These are the people who are absolutely going to need SS

If the business didn't have to pay SS too and could give it to the worker they could pay workers more.

Which helps these people more, increasing wages by 12.4% for 40+ years or hopefully collecting SS when you're 62-67?

If they saved the money and got 4% interest (10yr bond is 4.32%). They would have 200k saved for retirement.

They have been living on $1250 a month. That's 13 years of retirement in 200k.

That's with the government "not helping them"

Using that 200k to buy a house for retirement could even be a better investment than having to rent when retired. But taking it from them to hopefully give it back does have it's downsides.

They system relies on new wealthy investors and for some investors to not collect. You couldn't run a traditional "saving account" like it because it would be a ponzi scheme.