Thread by @physicsgeek

It still amazes me that the largest legalized Ponzi scheme on the planet exists and yet somehow people still believe that the money they pay into it is "their money." It isn't. What comes out of your paycheck is used to pay current Soc. Sec. recipients. Al Gore's nonsense notwithstanding, there is no lockbox with your money in it. The existing "fund" consists of nothing but IOUs from a government that cannot pay its bills. Dumb and Dumber was wrong: those are not just as good as money.

Let's use round numbers here. Assume you paid that maximum annual contribution to Soc. Sec. each year and your employer of course matched. That's around $20k/ year that you're effectively contributing; the business contribution simply reduces what your employer can pay you. Do this for 30 years and you've contributed $600k into the program.

Now let's also assume you retire at full retirement age, electing not to wait until 70 to maximize your monthly Soc. Sec. check. Currently, you're receive just over $4k/month. How many months at $4k/month does it take for you to get back the $600k you contributed to Soc. Sec? About 150 months, or 12.5 years. Each month you live beyond that means that you are collecting money that you never paid into it.

And what if you die the day after you retire? That $600k doesn't come to your family, your heirs, your estate. The government keeps what it took.

The number of retirees is growing faster than new employees are entering the workforce. Social Security is going to collapse at some point. To be fair, it's likely the federal government's budget will collapse before that happens just from the cost of servicing the growing debt.

And yet our politicians seem completely disconnected from this reality, focusing on how they can spend even more money (to buy votes, if we're being honest) instead of finding a way for this country to live within its means. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.

I started doing this math back when I was in high school, making markings on the cave walls. It was obvious where we were headed even back then, yet most are content to keep whistling past the graveyard. I shudder to think of their response when they discover how many lies they were fed.