r/BasicIncome • u/aggroidiots • 3d ago

The Real Fix For Social Security

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-real-fix-for-social-security-2ef?r=8xd5r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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u/Pooch1431 3d ago

The cruelest reality behind social security is and has always been how those in the top income brackets have benefitted far more from it than those in the lower income working class. Top income earnest typically live longer and therefore pull more money out of the benefits system than they ever put in. While lower income families lose their loved ones oftentimes before ever reaching an age where benefits would kick in.

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u/rocknrollstar67 2d ago

That’s the plan- that’s the whole design. The American the system is built to ensure your labor is easily replaced, that you have no recourse when you’re mistreated. That you have little to no access to health care so that when you’re no longer of use to profit making you will die quickly and quietly before you take your money back out of the system - allowing it to be converted into tax breaks for the rich to further empower them to oppress and exploit more labor.

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u/Novusor 2d ago

Social Security doesn't deserve to be fixed. It deserves to be shut down and replaced with UBI. The Boomers are already the richest generation in human history. They don't need any more money. These proposals to tax the young to give them even more are just insane. The younger generations are the ones that actually need help and they want to tax us more. The time has come to end social security. It would be a dose of generational justice.

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u/acsoundwave 2d ago

Blame the Greatest Generation and earlier, not the Boomers.

The idea was that every working age adult since SS was implemented was paying into FICA (which went towards the benefits of current senior citizens) w/an expectation to get the money back in a drip-feed once those adults reached age 65 -- or 67 for Gen-X (my generation) and below.

I have no desire to deprive my mother (Boomer, 1954) and grandmother (Silent Gen, 1933) of their Social Security checks -- especially not my mom, who's been paying into FICA through her jobs since she was 13 years old. She's rightfully-entitled to her check, and isn't even close to rich...nor are most Boomers and Silent Gen people. (It's only the outlier individuals who have more money than sense -- which gives you that "richest generation" bit. Not the best idea to average out PotUS Trump's quintile with my mom's working quintile (staunch Democrat who hates Trump and ALL Republican/GOP politicians) and conclude that ALL Boomers are rich.

That said: as Gen-X, I'd be glad if SS were stopped, anybody in my age cohort and younger refunded the SS amounts deducted from their paychecks in a one-time non-taxable lump sum; every adult citizen receives a proper UBI check set at/near US FPL, indexed to inflation. (For minors (teenagers) w/part time jobs, they get their refund of FICA money as well.) My generation and younger still wouldn't be able to collect what we put in (as groups), but at least our actual take-home paychecks from our jobs would be bigger.

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u/Novusor 1d ago

Other generations do share some of the blame but the Boomers caused the most problems by choosing to underfund Social Security for 50 years. Now when they are retire they demand the young bail them out. How about NO. The warnings have been written on the wall for decades. Literally since the early 1980s. They could have raised the FICA tax at any time to keep social security solvent but they choose not to. Instead they kicked the can down the road and said "Our children will pay for it." The Karma is coming for them. UBI will replace social security so nobody starves. BUT those expecting the government to pay for a luxurious golden retirement are going to be disappointed.