Where did the idea of retiring at age 62 and living off the gov come from

[jerbo]

Social Security is not an entitlement for those who worked their whole lives and paid into it. It is our money that the Government forced us to "contribute".

 

[Old Fart]

I refuse to retire and all you young jackwagons who are trying to push me out can kiss my big fat arse.

 

[Street Rat]

Exactly what I was thinking Cedar Creek. Our preacher gave a sermon on Jesus Christ this past Sunday, not SS..

WTF!!! I am 62, draw SS + 2 other retirements and interest from investments. Am I an enemy of the people for working hard and playing by the rules? And what kind of preacher would even be talking about **** like that?



Cedar Creek

I agree completely. I retired at 63 with social security, two pensions and a 401(k). I would have been happy if the feral government had just given me back the money they took from me for SS. With compound interest and in the form of gold bars of course.

It's not an impression. It's a promise and a guarantee on that promise. When you're forced to hand over your money to the program you're "entitled" to a return on that promise which was guaranteed. And that bit about getting more money back than what you paid in is nonsense. I have no doubt your pastor would or will gladly accept his/her SS money if and when it's available. And if that's so, he will instantly become a hypocrite.

Talk about missing the boat...

You guys completely went over subject, and talk about letting the judgement come out once a church leader was mentioned, hey, did some of you guys know, that some people can have "casual" (casual means it doesn't even need to be about church) conversations with preachers OUTSIDE of church? A mere mention of "something" he said that got me to thinking has you guys jumping on a man you don't even know.

My post is not about someone collecting SS when they retire, if you are collecting SS, that is great, I wouldn't expect you NOT to, gees, give me a break, and get a clue. It shouldn't matter how much disposable income you have other than SS, you paid in, it's YOUR money, YOU should be the one getting it back. The post is about the government trapping you into its web and just using it as another way to control the population. So get off of your judgement seats. It's great that you guys are collecting SS, I'm paying in, and probably won't see a penny of it, at least not in the form it is in now, I have a 401k that hasn't moved much in the last 4 years, and if there should be something by the time I get to draw it out, it will probably be worthless considering the state our union, if not given to someone else who is more deserving. Retire probabaly won't even be word at the I get there.

Carry on...

 

[RidgeHunter]

ignernt to thread



Dear Abby, Dear Abby...
My fountain pen leaks
My wife hollers at me and my kids are all freaks
Every side I get up on is the wrong side of bed
If it weren't so expensive I'd wish I were dead
Signed Unhappy

 

[cscokd]

I think everyone has missed the question of the OP. In a nutshell, when SS was started in 1937, there were very few who lived past 65 (62 is the early opt-in number). So there were far more workers paying into the system than retirees receiving benefits. (NOTE: SS was never meant to be a retirement fund. It was designed to be a supplemental income) As we have continued to increase in longevity, retirement age has not kept pace, so now we have far more retirees living off of SS than we have workers to support them. We must increase the age when a person can start receiving benefits (you can still retire whenever you want) and take the system back to what it was designed to be; a safety net for those outside the norm.

From http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/11/time-to-raise-social-securitys-retirement-age

The increase in life expectancy since 1950 has been substantial. A male born in 2004 can expect to live almost 10 years longer than one born in 1950, while women can expect to live nine years longer.[10] When the Social Security program was created in 1935, an adult man who reached age 65 could expect to spend about 13 years in retirement, which was 16 percent of his life; a woman averaged 15 years, or 18 percent of her life, in retirement. However, at that time only 54 percent of men (and slightly more women) aged 21 were expected to live to age 65, and there were approximately 8 million Americans ages 65 or older.[11]
A male retiree, born in 1940, will spend anywhere from 19 percent to 25 percent of his life collecting Social Security benefits (depending on whether he retired at the normal retirement age of 65 or chose early retirement), and a female born in the same year will spend 21 percent to 27 percent of her life collecting benefits.

 

[Hobbes]

I think everyone has missed the question of the OP. In a nutshell, when SS was started in 1937, there were very few who lived past 65 (62 is the early opt-in number). So there were far more workers paying into the system than retirees receiving benefits. (NOTE: SS was never meant to be a retirement fund. It was designed to be a supplemental income) As we have continued to increase in longevity, retirement age has not kept pace, so now we have far more retirees living off of SS than we have workers to support them. We must increase the age when a person can start receiving benefits (you can still retire whenever you want) and take the system back to what it was designed to be; a safety net for those outside the norm.

From http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/11/time-to-raise-social-securitys-retirement-age

The increase in life expectancy since 1950 has been substantial. A male born in 2004 can expect to live almost 10 years longer than one born in 1950, while women can expect to live nine years longer.[10] When the Social Security program was created in 1935, an adult man who reached age 65 could expect to spend about 13 years in retirement, which was 16 percent of his life; a woman averaged 15 years, or 18 percent of her life, in retirement. However, at that time only 54 percent of men (and slightly more women) aged 21 were expected to live to age 65, and there were approximately 8 million Americans ages 65 or older.[11]
A male retiree, born in 1940, will spend anywhere from 19 percent to 25 percent of his life collecting Social Security benefits (depending on whether he retired at the normal retirement age of 65 or chose early retirement), and a female born in the same year will spend 21 percent to 27 percent of her life collecting benefits.

That is a common and widely spread piece of misinformation from those trying to convince you to give up your SS benefits willingly.

If we look at life expectancy statistics from the 1930s we might come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood.​

As Table 1 shows, the majority of Americans who made it to adulthood could expect to live to 65, and those who did live to 65 could look forward to collecting benefits for many years into the future. So we can observe that for men, for example, almost 54% of the them could expect to live to age 65 if they survived to age 21, and men who attained age 65 could expect to collect Social Security benefits for almost 13 years (and the numbers are even higher for women).​

Also, it should be noted that there were already 7.8 million Americans age 65 or older in 1935 (cf. Table 2), so there was a large and growing population of people who could receive Social Security. Indeed, the actuarial estimates used by the Committee on Economic Security (CES) in designing the Social Security program projected that there would be 8.3 million Americans age 65 or older by 1940 (when monthly benefits started). So Social Security was not designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits.​

As Table 1 indicates, the average life expectancy at age 65 (i.e., the number of years a person could be expected to receive unreduced Social Security retirement benefits) has increased a modest 5 years (on average) since 1940. So, for example, men attaining 65 in 1990 can expect to live for 15.3 years compared to 12.7 years for men attaining 65 back in 1940.​

(Increases in life expectancy are a factor in the long-range financing of Social Security; but other factors, such as the sheer size of the "baby boom" generation, and the relative proportion of workers to beneficiaries, are larger determinants of Social Security's future financial condition.)
http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

​

Table 1: Life Expectancy for Social Security
Year Cohort Turned 65	Percentage of Population Surviving from Age 21 to Age 65	Average Remaining Life Expectancy for Those Surviving to Age 65
	Male	Female	Male	Female
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990	53.9 56.2 60.1 63.7 67.8 72.3	60.6 65.5 71.3 76.9 80.9 83.6	12.7 13.1 13.2 13.8 14.6 15.3	14.7 16.2 17.4 18.6 19.1 19.6

​

Table 2: Americans Age 65 or Older 1880-1990
Year	Number of Americans Age 65 or Older
1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000	1.7 million 2.4 million 3.0 million 3.9 million 4.9 million 6.7 million 9.0 million 12.7 million 17.2 million 20.9 million 26.1 million 31.9 million 34.9 million

​

 

[Old Fart]

Dang Hobbes! That's a bunch of old folks.....

 

[Swapwap]

That plan was flawed from the start. Name just one social program that every worked?

 

[cscokd]

Well, while we are talking numbers...

US Workforce 1941: 99,900
US Workforce 2008: 233,788
US Workforce percentage change: 234%

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat01.htm

SS Beneficiaries 1940 – 222,488 – $35,000,000 NOTE: Not everyone over age 65 was a beneficiary.
SS Beneficiaries 2008 – 50,898,244 – $615,344,000,000
SS Beneficiaries percentage change: 22,877% increase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)#Total_benefits_paid.2C_by_year

Ratio of workers to beneficiaries:
1940: 1:2.23
2008: 1:217.7

Granted, longevity is only one aspect of the problem, but I think it is a major part of it. Either way, the numbers make it obvious that this is not a sustainable program.

 

[VIKING]

Show you how dumb I am I actually thought the problem was that the federal government started putting Social Security funds in the General fund. In other words, the jackasses started spending it on other projects and not social security. Guess I'm wrong again......