There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

catfishsushi ,

Vote. Every. Time.

kttnpunk ,
@kttnpunk@lemmy.world avatar

*And/or choose action, because the system is rigged on several levels and our options suck

catfishsushi ,

I agree. The options at the voting center are rarely great. Action is certainly better.

But getting off the sofa to vote for the least-evil option is critical. Especially in the primaries and mid-terms. Vote. Every. Time. Vote for dog-catcher, school boards etc.

If you’re young it’s even more important.

Cowbee ,

Voting prevents things from getting worse, it doesn’t make things better.

catfishsushi ,

Not sure I agree. Obamacare is better than then nothing-burger that was available before if you didn’t get healthcare through an employer. Biden is trying to at least get some student loan relief through congress. Getting the right people elected to state governments can help make abortions available again in some states. (If you’re a right-wing person then choose the opposite topics for your examples.)

People who are defeatist about voting come across as complainers who are too lazy to get off their butts to help.

Cowbee ,

I can see what you’re saying, but I’m not talking about marginal improvements for the vast majority, or vast improvements for the vast minority. I’m talking about large, systemic improvements.

The issue with electoralism is that the right candidates cannot make it to the ballot in the first place, the system weeds them out.

I’m not defeatist about voting, I think loss prevention is crucial. I’m not naive though, voting won’t ever fix our society, that must be done at the grassroots level.

dx1 ,

Not sure I agree. I think many people who are “defeatist about voting” have observed that the surface-level differences between Democrats and Republicans (namely social issues and the more visible fascism from Republicans) just mask an underlying corporatist/fascist state that’s sacrosanct and immune from popular pressure and legislative change.

Re: “Obamacare” (which is just one tiny change mind you) - there were some marginal improvements like re: preexisting conditions, but mostly it seemed to increase compliance costs, my understanding is premiums have just continued rising and the fundamental issues causing healthcare scarcity and limiting competition have been made worse.

jasondj , (edited )

While I don’t disagree, the individual mandate was a crucial part of making it work, and also the weakest part of it. There shouldn’t have been an individual mandate without a much larger medicaid supplement or Medicare-for-All as options. A handslap fee for not having insurance was both a worthless penalty and legally shaky from the get-go.

There should’ve been caps on premium and deductible increases that were way more realistic, too. Like rent-control and tied to either a maximum percent of net profit increase, or inflation, etc.

Ultimately I don’t think Obamacare went far enough, and I don’t think there’s an argument to the contrary that’s not in favor of protecting the true enemies of sustainable healthcare, the insurance companies.

dx1 ,

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.

hotkinkyjo ,

www.vidlii.com/watch?v=njL4HaoY8lW

Smokeydope ,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

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.

ToeNailClippings ,

ShOuLd HaVE saVeD sOmE DAmn mOnEyyy…

Smokeydope ,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

NGL im kind of halfways on that. Yes obviously thinking about investment and ways to make up passive income or even start your own buisness are the best ways to plan for a healthy retirement fund. But people who come from poverty, poorly educated to begin with, poor financial mindset, and just scrapes each week are going to have a much harder time of it and if they try they usually fall for an MLM scheme. Its easy to judge these people and go ‘well your financial failure to save up is your own fault you idiot’ but Ive had enough poverty stricken friends to know that the deeper the hole you are born into the harder it is to climb out of even with honest work and educating yourself through the internet.

ToeNailClippings ,

Exactly. You have to earn enough in the first place to save enough.

Smokeydope ,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

Either earn enough or become super frugal and cut down on the expenses to the point you can actually save with what you make The biggest thing a single person can do to reduce their expenses is cut out the rent payments by living in a vehicle for a bit while working and use that money to pay it off. But obviously not everyone has the mental fortitude to adapt to such a radically different lifestyle or freedom from responsibility to do so even if they wanted to.

Asafum ,

It doesn’t have to be that extreme, you could just live in circumstances that you don’t prefer that aren’t on the road. I live in a dilapidated garage that is the cheapest thing around. I hate it, I have a playschool size “babys first refrigerator,” no clothes dryer, far from anyone my age, etc… but I can save a few hundred a month that I would have otherwise been throwing away at some corporate landlord.

The idea was to do this until I made enough to afford a house, but COVID came and said “fuck your future and just about every one else’s too. Also I’ma kill millions of you but somehow make housing prices increase anyway.”

Smokeydope ,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

About the clothes dryer thing, look into this kind of portable washing machine+spin dryer

I watched nomadic fanatics review of one and honestly looks to do a pretty decent job. Heres the review vid

I live in a 4 season canvas tent offgrid myself. Good on you for finding a way to save $ by giving up some lifestyle convinence. I hope you find ways to further improve your quality of life within the garage.

Asafum ,

Thanks for the tip! I’ll have to look into that for sure :D

Bgugi ,

“life is too expensive to be sustainable…”

“HAVE YOU TRIED BEING HOMELESS?”

Blackmist ,

If you don’t own your own property by the time you retire, then you’re fucked.

Asafum ,

Even then, my landlord needs my income too or she can’t afford the house… It’s so disgusting.

Part of me wishes we could all move out and once and force the wealthy to reap what they sow. Everything is too expensive and we’re not paid enough, social security isn’t enough, well when they’re the only ones left for miles and miles then who will do everything for them?

UFODivebomb ,

Stop spreading this BS. SS going bankrupt is misinformation.

DahGangalang ,

I want to believe. Can you provide sources for that claim?

SasquatchBanana ,

How about OP provides sources to their claim first.

DahGangalang ,

On one hand: fair. If you’re not versed in elements of tax law this but of data can seem arcane.

On the other: this is a matter of policy - not one of research. This the definitive answer can be found rather easily with a Google search. Here’s a link to a Social Security Administration page on the topic: www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/cbb.html

By the math set out at the above link, one can calculate that, at a maximum income of $168,600 and a SS Contribution rate of 6.2%, the most any individual would contribute to social security in a year would be $10,453.20.

$10,453.20 would represent 0.052266% of the income of someone making $20 millions per year. Even doubling that amount (as some conservatives do) to count the employer’s contributions to Social Security would leave you with just over 0.1% of net income.

So yeah, even if Social Security isn’t going bankrupt, it’s an anemic system that barely provides livable circumstances for those who depend on it. Raising or removing that “max income for contributions” limit would go a long way to seeing the system be able to actually support people who need it while only burdening those most able to bear the burden.

Mikesomething ,

Is it though?

(From Bard) “The Social Security trust funds are projected to run out of money by 2034. This means that the Social Security administration will only be able to pay out 77% of a retiree’s full benefits.”

Which I get isn’t exactly the same as what OP is claiming, but it is still pretty concerning for those of us not close to retirement age

dx1 ,

Read any SS Trustees report. It doesn’t have “money”, it has debt instruments (bonds), which are essentially a document saying “we the government owe ourselves a thousand dollars”. You can print those all day, it’s only sourcing that money that has any kind of direct consequence (taxation, inflation, etc.).

And yes, that does raise an interesting question of, what did they do with the actual money we paid into the programs, if the only thing in the trust fund is bonds.

Asafum ,

Don’t they pull from SS funds to pay for other things but then “give it back” at some point? I feel like I read something about that, maybe what’s being paid back isn’t “cash” but bonds?

dx1 ,

In effect, the bonds I mentioned are just inverted loans. The Treasury takes in $1k from payroll taxes for these programs, issues a bond to the trust fund saying “I owe you $1k plus interest”, spends the $1k on whatever (I guess primarily the discretionary budget) and eventually has to somehow generate money to pay it back with interest.

In terms of whether or not bonds were “borrowed” - this wouldn’t exactly matter in a meaningful sense, but I’m not clear this ever actually happened in the first place. There was some claim about, when the trust fund was mixed with the general fund 1968-1990, maybe the government took bonds out of the program, but you have to remember that inside the government, that’s not something of value, that’s just an obligation the government has to pay to itself, it’s a big nothing burger.

AA5B ,

is still pretty concerning for those of us not close to retirement age

It’s even more concerning for those of us who are close. Even most of us with savings are pretty reliant on that for retirement

UFODivebomb ,

Isn’t “exactly” still means the statement “bankrupt” is false. Don’t move goalposts in the claims. That’s disingenuous and only adds to the misinformation.

Honytawk ,

What is the difference between a CEO and Santa Clause?

spoilerBoth of them judge you all year round, but one of them performs at least one day of work.

Emerald ,

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!

Snapz ,

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.

Sparlock ,

To make SS solvent all they need to do is make higher income earners contribute on the same scale they make lower income earners pay already.

If people making above 140,000ish had to keep contributing at the same rate as everyone UNDER that number does, there would be no issue at all. But a billionaire pays as much into SS as someone making 140k a year, probably LESS because of the Social Security payroll tax income limit.

Tax the rich already!

hglman ,

Eat them, but ok.

Sparlock ,

I’m good with either.

hglman ,

Libs going to lib

frezik ,

This never made sense to me. You get out of Social Security more or less what you put into it (with lower income earners actually getting a bit more, proportionately speaking). If you remove the cap, people will be paying more into it now and pumping the fund up. Eventually, we just hit the same problems when those high income earners eventually withdraw, since they’ll be pulling that much more, as well.

I get the “tax the rich” idea, but Social Security isn’t a tax, at least not in the same way as everything else. It’s a retirement fund with mandatory contributions.

Kage520 ,

If you look into bend points, you will see that the first amount you contribute gets you a significant return later for your SS check, but as you contribute more, the slope of the size of the SS check flattens. After the second bend point, adding more into SS doesn’t get you a much larger check.

The reason the rich wouldn’t want to further contribute then, is because at that point, their contributions are getting a very poor return, and they would feel they could do better on their own. Since it isn’t a tax, they would argue (correctly) that it is a waste of their money compared to investing themselves.

AeonFelis ,

100%? That doesn’t sound right. If all the money goes to Social Security, what will be left for the IRS to take?

Kiosade ,

That’s obviously not what they meant, please don’t bring this dumb Reddit smarminess here.

ilovesatan ,
@ilovesatan@lemmy.world avatar

They aren’t even correct in a pedantic way. What a loser.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

SS Works is

A poorly thought out tag

randon31415 ,

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?”

Hacksaw ,

He kept saying lockbox because there was (and still is) a rumor that Congress has been stealing social security to pay for wars and that’s why it’s bankrupt.

The reality is that the money is invested in US bonds. Although technically Congress uses that money for wars and other stuff, they pay it back at interest which is overall good for social security (at least compared to cash just sitting there). I suppose if the money was invested instead of being used to buy extremely low yield bonds it could have grown many times over by now, so that’s “stealing to pay for wars” by SOME definitions… But it’s not what most people mean with their accusations.

Tl;dr: it’s in a lockbox!

pomodoro_longbreak ,
@pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works avatar

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

Japan_50 ,

Yea. 6.2% of each paycheck is taken out for SS and your employer will match it. Then, when you turn 67, you are of retirement age and will start reciecving monthly checks proportional to your income when you were working. There are exceptions but that’s generally how it goes

SlowNoPoPo ,

Exceptions like the entire millennial generation

ManOMorphos ,

That’s only true if we let Republicans axe it for real. This is a often-repeated line, but assuming all is lost multiple years in advance isn’t the right way to go about this.

SlowNoPoPo ,

the entire thing is based of exponential growth like our entire economy, which isn’t going to happen

republicans may accelerate the decline, but you’re lying to yourself if you think there will be retirement money waiting for you

ManOMorphos ,

I seriously doubt it will ever pay out enough to be a primary retirement method, but there isn’t enough evidence yet to say it’s likely to be 100% gone either. As the fund stands now without any legislative input, it’s set to run out after 2035 the earliest.

It would be a long and difficult road, but I think it’s still possible to keep SS running and/or a meaningfully sufficient replacement. It’s not as though the money required doesn’t exist. It’s just that oligarchs want to help as little as they can possibly get away with.

The moment we accept that terminating a fund that keeps people alive is tenable, they will be emboldened to do so. Personally I won’t accept it. Hopefully this generation will have enough political power to keep it, but I’m not going to rely on SS to retire either.

chiliedogg ,

Yes and no.

It’s a social safety net. Yes, it can be used as a retirement plan, but it isn’t guaranteed and some pensions/retirement plans preclude collection of social security benefits even though you paid in.

My father was a firefighter, and due to his excellent pension he gets like 12 dollars a month from social security. But he’s also doing fine because of his pension.

Meanwhile someone who has a catastrophic event in their life but isn’t at retirement age may be able to collect benefits.

The biggest problem with social security (aside from the maximum contribution bullshit alluded to in the OP) is that it is treated as a primary retirement plan by most people. That was not its original purpose.

It was also established with a retirement age of 65 when the average lifespan was 63, so even for those using it for retirement. So on average most people didn’t live long enough to collect it AND most that did live long enough didn’t collect it anyway, AND for those who did, it was only for a few years in average.

But now a majority of Americans are using it for decades. Of course it’s running out of money.

Hacksaw ,

I don’t think as many people as you imagine are choosing “wow I can’t wait to barely be able to afford rent and food when I retire on a fixed income” as a PRIMARY retirement plan. I think a lot of people are having a hard time saving for retirement thanks to inflation and a stock market crash every 10 years, and are grateful that with social security they’ll at least have SOMETHING. I wouldn’t call that “choosing social security as the primary retirement plan” I’d call that “work your whole life and barely afford to survive when you’re too old to work anymore”

I’m not sure that’s something to blame or resent people over.

Malfeasant ,

Of course it is. If you as an individual can’t accurately predict world economic conditions 40 years in advance, you are a complete failure of a person.

Should be obvious, but since people are stupid, /s

abraxas ,

and a stock market crash every 10 years

Need to have money in retirement to care about the stock market. If you had to liquidate retirement during COVID, yer just fucked. And got fucked for 3 years of “deferred taxes” on the emergency withdrawal as well.

It’s funny what a 40 year older will do to NOT have to live on the street when push comes to shove.

chiliedogg ,

I don’t blame or resent people for using social security. I’m just saying the way it is used is not in alignment with the how it was int need, and that disconnect is why it’s unfunded.

The cap on contributions should absolutely go away. In fact, it should be made progressive.

AA5B ,

Or I’m “choosing” multiple financial disasters (including medical) despite more of a safety net than most Americans have. So I’m way too reliant on SS

TAG ,
@TAG@lemmy.world avatar

That 63 year average lifespan is a bit misleading since, I assume, it is just the mean age at death. It includes infants who die in the delivery room and people who die of untreatable diseases during childhood. It would be more accurate to put the average lifespan of people who made it to adulthood (since they are the only ones who contribute to social security).

Dkarma ,

That’s not why it’s running out of money tho. In fact it’s not running out of money they just took it and used it for other things like the military.

Social security is not its own fund. It used to be. They stole a bunch of money from it when they merged it into the general fund.

The idea that SS is insolvent is simply a lie.

AA5B ,

No I don’t think this is right either. With the boomer generation, SS always had a surplus: more being collected than paid out. Govt financial shenanigans issued debt to let other parts of the govt borrow this “surplus”. However now that the pool of workers paying in is much smaller than retired folk getting paid, that surplus is rapidly turning into deficit: it needs to payout more than it collects.

There’s never been a “fund”, never been “savings”, there’s nothing to “steal”. However SS can no longer meet its commitments (in ten years) so something needs to change

Dkarma ,

You really need to research. Yes it was its own fund initially.

MystikIncarnate ,

Can you explain what the person in the OP picture is referring to as “the cap”? What is it? How is it defined?

Is it like, up to $x? Or something? For contributions?

Kage520 ,

SS takes a % of your pay up to a certain amount. I am not sure the “bend points” so I will give fake numbers. Up to maybe $50k per year, you get a very strong “return” for that contribution. Your SS check will be low, but then again, you didn’t put in much over your life. Now up to like $100k, you will get a larger check. But not double. From there to like $140k, you still get a larger check, but not 40% more than the $100k.

After $140k, you are no longer required to contribute. With the diminishing returns, it would not have increased the SS check much (if at all) anyways.

What the OP picture is suggesting is to continue to make them pay into SS even though they would get little or no return on it. I see why that makes some sense, but since this is technically not a “tax” but a required pension system, I think they would have to rewrite it all to make sure it was fair that way.

bitwolf ,

I was just remarking on this the other day.

Since Social Security is set to fail, I wouldn’t be opposed to ripping the band aid off and cancelling Social Security at the millennial generation.

To make things right with the millennials, pay them out ~50k for their contributions.

Then maybe millennials would have a better shot at owning a home in this lifetime and the Gen X’ers would get the last Social Security payout.

BeautifulMind ,
@BeautifulMind@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Dkarma ,

Also make the SS fund separate from the general fund and make the general fund (aka the military) pay back what they took from SS originally.

HubertManne ,

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.

RagingRobot ,

Yeah why is there a benefit for people who don’t make their money from labor? They need to be rewarded for already making more by doing nothing? Nonsense

otter ,

Are you legitimately asking?

Because they pay politicians to make it so.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •