Misleading Memes

Who died before they collected Social Security?
KEEP PASSING THIS AROUND UNTIL EVERYONE HAS HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO READ IT. THIS IS SURE SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!  THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THE GOVERNMENT'S CALCULATION OF AVAILABLE SOCIAL SECURITY IS THEY FORGOT TO FIGURE IN THE PEOPLE WHO DIED BEFORE THEY EVER COLLECTED A SOCIAL SECURITY CHECK! WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO?
Remember, not only did you and I contribute to Social Security but your employer did too.
It totaled 15% of your income before taxes.
If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500.
Read that again.
Did you see where the Government paid in one single penny?
We are talking about the money you and your employer put in a government bank to insure you and I, that we would have a retirement check from the money we put in, not the Government.
Now they are calling the money we put in an entitlement when we reach the age to take it back.
If you calculate the future invested value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% interest (less than what the Government pays on the money that it borrows).
After 49 years of working you'd have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit!
If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.
THE FOLKS IN WASHINGTON
HAVE PULLED OFF A BIGGER PONZI SCHEME
THAN BERNIE MADOFF EVER DID.
Entitlement my foot; I paid cash for my social security insurance!
Just because they borrowed the money for other government spending, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!
Remember Congressional benefits?
--- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days.
Now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement payments entitlements?
They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives, and now, when it's time for us to collect, the government is running out of money.
Why did the government borrow from it in the first place?
It was supposed to be in a locked box, not part of the general fund.
Sad isn't it?
99% of people won't have the guts to SHARE this.

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This misleading meme is making the rounds again. It is riddled with fallacies and falsehoods.

"It totaled 15% of your income before taxes."  No.  FICA totaled 12.4% for most years since 1990.  Over the last 49 years (the period the author of this bull-crap chose), the rate has been as low as 7.7% and never higher than 12.4%.  Further, back in 1966, when this 49 year period begins, the maximum amount of your income subject to FICA tax was only $6,600.  The actual amount a person would have paid in during that 49 year period, based on a salary of $30,000 per year, would have been $144,246.

The reason is isn't 15.3% is that 2.9% went to Medicare tax, which provides coverage to everyone who reaches the age of 65.

"After 49 years of working you'd have $892,919.98."  No.  Ridiculous.  30 year Treasury bonds may be paying close to an annual average of 5%, but a lot of the money the Treasury borrows are in shorter term securities which have interest rates closer to 1%.  Plus there wasn't $4,500 a year to invest.

"It was supposed to be in a locked box, not part of the general fund."  No.  As I mentioned in a previous blog about another misleading meme regarding FICA, we as individuals have no property rights involving Social Security benefits.  What we pay in is NOT a personal retirement savings account.  It is a TAX, to fund the benefits currently being paid out.

You can read more at Snopes.