Reply to What Would You Be Willing to Do to Save SS?

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "What Would You Be Willing to Do to Save SS?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
So is it fundamentally a welfare system or a pension system? I think that is where reasonable people can disagree.[/quote]

I don't think there is room for reasonable disagreement

It is a social safety net.  Intended to give people a little extra cash to get by.  It is not a welfare system and is not designed as a welfare system.  
  
The problem is that too many people, for various reasons, have come to depend on it as a significant portion of their retirement so there is a lot of pressure to not make necessary changes to the system

Not a welfare system.  Welfare is getting something for nothing.  In a few cases that is true of SS (children who lose a parent) but not many.
[/quote]

+1. It's social insurance. You get it when you become disabled, your kids get it if you die, and you get it at retirement as a relatively small income base that you need to supplement with your own savings of you don't want to spend your retirement in poverty.

It's not welfare because everybody pays in and everybody gets benefits (progressive benefits which are undone by differential mortality rates).

It's not an investment either. Although PP above who said it should get interest is wrong--SS does earn government bond interest rates on the government bonds it holds.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics