243
Young Americans turn against Boomers over Social Security
(www.newsweek.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
243 points (83.5% liked)
News
23305 readers
3388 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Just for those unaware - the social security pay-in is a percentage of your income, but the maximum amount of your income subject to social security withholding is capped at a fixed level that increases annually. The last time I looked, the cutoff was somewhere around $138k. So if your cumulative income for the year hits $138k in, say, June, you are no longer subject to SS withholding and your weekly paycheck goes up by a couple of hundred dollars or so as a result. Most people don’t hit this amount, but enough do that were the cap eliminated, it would increase solvency and possibly allow for an increase in payouts.
On the flip side, your payout from social security is proportional to what your pay in was. It’s still capped, and it’s not really enough to live on. Those who hit the cap typically have multiple other sources of savings for retirement and could easily contribute more to the national program.
It’s 168k now for those interested: https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/social-security-wage-base-increases-to-168600-in-2024/
I'm sorry but this disproportionately affects W2 workers who live in HCOL areas. I've paid into social security since I started working in HS. I'm now a 34 year old, and am expecting nothing during my retirement years as I've been told. Naturally I'm saving up with a 401k and Roth IRA, and you're saying it's okay to drain more from me because I am planning on there being nothing left for me?
I don't agree with that. Why can't we do a wealth tax first and see where we are, why must we hit W2 folks over the head every time.
Yes, it's ok to take more from you because it's how social security can be offered to everyone, including you.
You say you're putting money away into retirement because you don't think social security will be there. Then you say you don't want to help make social security there for everyone. The whole point is that if millions of people like you were able to add a little more to the bucket, then it would make life better for everyone.
This isn't increasing taxes to start a war, or to bail out billionaires, this is real, tangible benefits to every citizen.
No it won't, the ratio of retirees to the workforce is getting higher and higher because of all the shit that this fucked up country does to burden the current generation for all the problems caused by the boomers. I'd much rather let the boomers experience the finding out phase after they've been fucking around so much.
What's worse is that the life expectancy of those boomers is going to add unsustainable strain to the system. As society progresses you'll eventually have less births, which means this problem might be getting even worse in the future. The only way it would be sustainable is that you have constant growth in both people and the economy. That's literally not possible.
I'd much rather take my chances, take whatever you've taken from me I don't want it back, but let me do my own investments and leave me with more disposable income. Fix the government before dumping more tax money into the money pit. I'll happily vote for the guy who will try.
Fuck Milton Friedman.
I don't like the fucker either, but you don't have to be a libertarian to see that our government isn't working right now. We need to find a way to fix our government in such a manner that bad faith actors cannot survive in it. Otherwise we're just throwing money at them which they can then use to enrich their friends.
Yeah, it disproportionately affects W2 workers making over 140k per year or so. Thats fine. That’s the way things are supposed to be.
It’s not hitting “W2 folks” to extend withholding beyond $140k. It’s doing the appropriate thing and not giving them a free ride. If you want to additionally hit up the people who are living off of the various ways you can monetize wealth, that’s fine too. I’m in favor of a wealth tax. I think that’s also fair. I think Warren proposed a 2% tax on holdings over $4M. I support that. That’s still different than SS withholding.
Let’s say you’re making a whopping $150k. That means that you’ll pay (and I am probably overestimating) a few hundred dollars a year into the SS fund. It’s not a noticeable amount, whether you live in a HCOL area or not. It’s a nice dinner, stretched out over 365 days worth of payments.
It’s a trivial amount of money for an individual, which when spread over the population of the country, can make the difference to the majority of the population. I’m very much down with that.
The tax cap exists because there is a limit to how much you can get paid out.
Yes. That is what I said. I think it’s not a valid justification.
By way of analogy, let’s say we move to a point of tuition-free public college, which I also support. My taxes which go to support those colleges would be far higher than those of most people, but my kids, were I to have any, would receive the exact same benefit from a financial standpoint as people whose taxes contributed far less to none.
My property taxes are somewhere around $25k per year. They go largely to support a public school system which, as a person without children, I receive zero direct benefit from. Should I get a lower property tax because I am a person without kids despite having a higher income and higher valued property? Or should I be taxed relative to my ability to support the community? Should a family that makes a quarter of what I do but have four kids pay more than me?
It seems pretty valid to me.
This doesn't equate, if you get a proportion based on what you've put in, your kids would get a larger amount vs the poorer family. Assuming we're equating to SS.
Would you be happy if you put in 30k every year for your life and you're only getting 15k back every year during retirement?
Personally I think that the family of 4 that makes a quarter should probably not be having kids... it's not good for the kid or the parent to be in that situation. I know because that was my childhood. Shit left quite a few scars well into adulthood.
That’s not what they’re saying. They’re arguing to remove the contribution cap but not the payout cap, similar to various other public services: rich people pay way more in taxes for public schools despite receiving approximately the same benefits. It’s a form of wealth redistribution, and conveniently would solve the social security funding issue.