The nonpartisan budget watchdog, revisiting one of its favorite subjects, found that Americans retiring this decade are on track to collect, in the form of entitlements, about 133% of everything they and their employers paid in taxes, measured in present-value dollars. Strip out the employer match, and the return nearly doubles: Roughly 265% of what workers put in themselves. A median-wage retiree in 2027 will collect about $730,000 in lifetime benefits on combined contributions of less than $200,000. The math holds together because today’s payroll taxes are covering the gap. Who pays those taxes, and who is retiring and collecting? Largely millennials and baby boomers, respectively.
In nominal dollars, the gap is even more dramatic. A median-wage worker retiring in 2027 can expect about $730,000 in lifetime Social Security benefits, compared with less than $200,000 paid in taxes by that worker and their employer combined, according to CRFB. Benefits outpace total taxes paid after just six years of collecting. They outpace the worker’s own direct contributions after only three.
The consequence is a financing cliff that’s now closely dated. Social Security’s retirement trust fund is projected to be depleted in 2032, with the combined retirement and disability trust funds exhausted by around 2033 or 2034. After that point, according to the SSA Trustees Report, incoming payroll taxes alone would cover only about 78% of scheduled benefits—triggering an automatic, across-the-board cut of roughly 22% unless Congress intervenes before then.
The promise of retirement for Millennials is just a mirage. Conservatives keep sabotaging social security even though it has worked for 3 generations.
Baby boomers are collecting 265% of what they paid into Social Security
A median-wage worker retiring in 2027 can expect about $730,000 in lifetime Social Security benefits, compared with less than $200,000 paid in taxes by that worker and their employer combined
Adjusting the $200k for inflation, that’s around $800k.
If anything, SS recipients should be getting back more than $730k. That’s deferred consumption which was recycled through public spending into increased domestic growth. Growth that the vast majority of these workers never got to see, as their salaries fell behind the inflation rate.
But ask the editors of Fortune Magazine what they think of uncapping the Social Security tax, so it applies to people making more than $180k/year. Ask them how they feel about paying for SS directly out of the General Fund, rather than getting a special Poor Tax that can’t be exempted through deductions and credits. Ask them how they feel about paying for SS out of an Equities Transaction Tax, such that trillionaires issuing the next round of IPOs take responsibility for the millions of senior citizens who they are brain-fucking with AI slop on a daily basis.
Social Security is the promise this country (kinda-sorta) makes to its elderly. If you worked your whole life, you won’t be impoverished the day your employer doesn’t consider you a value-add anymore. The taxation scheme for SS is fucked, but only because it taxes labor income rather than labor value. We’ve seen the gross wealth in this country rise from $2.2T to $167T between 1960 and 2027. And you’re telling me we’re running out of money to pay our retirees?
Fuck off. Anyone should be able to see through this bullshit.
Exactly. It is obvious that this is trying to lie to you, because of course employees should be entitled to the employer match that employers paid into SS. If SS were a private fund, then those retirement funds would have been earning interest and the payors should be entitled to interest on their savings. “But, the index fund is paying you out more than you put in!!! The stock market will run out of moeny!” No, that is exactly what index funds, and retirement funds, are suppose to do.
I think just like the US Secret Service, Social Security is… uh… not fond of the acronym… ;-)
The most obvious slight of hand here is the suggestion that employer contributions shouldn’t count as part of what employees paid in. That is part of their compensation and shouldn’t be ignored when suggesting that younger generations are paying for baby boomer’s social security.
To me this reads like someone is trying to poison younger people against social security so they won’t complain when it is taken away.
So I guess Fortune magazine just discovered inflation today? Fuck your dumb oligarch divisive bullshit, the only problem with Social Security is that the wealthiest haven’t been paying enough into it.
Oh, cool, a multi-prong attack on Social Security, just like I commented on that other article here on Social Security.
Get the younger generation all whipped up and butthurt about the “olds” collecting what is characterized as “too much”. While the oligarchs bitch about “balancing the budget” by cutting services.
Instead of the fucking obvious option - lift the caps.
I wish I could downvote this article more than once.
Thank you for saving me the time and energy to say precisely that.
If the caps were removed, it would completely solve the problem.
That’s it.
Yet again, they try to divide us any way they can.
It’s an old lie, sir, but it works.
Goddamn, I’m so sick of this bad faith argument. Fucking Fortune bullshit.
Remove the Social Security Cap on incomes over $184k and this problem goes away. It’s really that fucking simple.
TAX THE FUCKING RICH ALREADY.
Yeah, a reasonable cap on what you get out but none on what you put in. Because yeah if you’re making $200k a year you should be saving if you want to maintain a wealthy lifestyle, but everyone should be able to sleep indoors and keep eating off of a social security income.
Their own graph illustrates how bullshit their own argument is:
In the text they are comparing taxes without interest at “less than $200,000” (aka as $197.000 or “almost $200.000” if the author weren’t a ghoul) with benefits without interest at $730.000, without mentioning interest/inflation adjustment at all. Since taxes were paid decades before the benefits will be received, their accumulated interest is going to be much higher, which is illustrated well by the graph.
If the graph can be trusted, then with interest the break even point of contributions/benefits happens at 82 or 83 years of age. The usa life expectancy is 79 years. So according to their own data, the average boomer will have contributed more than they will receive. And that is with the current regressive taxation scheme, where high earners contribute less.
But I believe the GOP have been "borrowing " money from Social Security hence why there won’t be anything for future generations. For fuck sake I might as well die if thinking going live on it. The average baby boomer is not living on their SS. Also got letter in 2010 telling me I would be eligible to collect when 72, fucking 72 years old. I suppose to work until I am almost dead? Fuck that.
Time fucking cull some billionaires.
Yeah interest and inflation both crap on this, I’d think. There are many other ways to shit stir about the majority of the boomers but this one is weak
Let’s be clear, every generation should get more than they put into it by working, because they’re still paying taxes as well. Also, we all buy our own healthcare for the most part. This is a shitty, shitty, comparison.
The media sure is pushing the “cut social security and medicare” narrative this month — instead of pointing out that yearly military budget is $1 trillion.
I’m proud of Lemmy’s response to this.
I expected “boomers bad”, but found most comments calling out the bullshit.
Disappointed by the amount of upvotes though
Definitely a bunch of “boomers bad” upvotes
We know bad faith arguments when we see them.
Okay but you cannot take away the employer contribution for your math. That portion is part of your compensation.
That’s similar to doing math on 401(k) and taking out employer match. It doesn’t make sense. It’s YOUR money either way.
They could get rid of the cap on social security tax. It’s pretty fucking low.
And it will be the same for when millennials are old enough to collect. That’s literally how it works. The fact that people are constantly trying to frame this, like it’s some kind of scam, is infuriating. Stop bullshitting people.
Baby boomers are collecting 265% of what they paid into Social Security
Brief recap on how retirement savings work: you invest, and the money grows. See also: inflation adjusted dollars.
and millennials are paying the price
Fucking headslap. We have a basic understanding of how SS works. My kids will be “paying the price” for Millennials. This is nothing but inter generational rage bait.
Thank you. I thought I was going crazy for a second.
Not only is the amount supposed to grow, but it’s also supposed to keep ahead of inflation. And the last 40-50 years have had A LOT of that.
Yes, my 401k is doing even more than 265% than I put in already years away from retirement, and that’s not because the government is funneling money into it on my behalf.
This is horseshit that should be deleted. Some VC billionaire is funding a campaign to make everyone hate social security so they can privatize it.
Eliminate the cap or eliminate the fuckin problem
Honestly would include us genXers. Still working with no end in sight.
