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Ruth,
You are missing the main point of the entire debacle... Since Bernie Madoff is in the news, he just received 150 years for his "Ponzi" scheme everyone should understand what a "Ponzi' scheme is... That is what Social Security has ALWAYS BEEN, even if none of this would have been done.. It would still be going broke. You yourself will receive more in benefits than you ever paid in. The money never earned a dime.
Do the math, let's say you began work at 15 and began paying FICA at that time. to make the math easy we will say you retired at 65, and you worked full time getting paid every two weeks. Also to make the math easy we will say you paid in $100.00 every pay day to FICA. When you started you paid less, before you retired you paid more, but $100.00 is an easy number...
Here is what you would have earned
100.00X26 (pay periods in a year) X50 (years worked) = $130,000.00 if you take out ONLY $1300.00 per month, you will run out of money in 8 years 4 months, age 73..
Here is the big secret, when the program started, the first recipient began getting checks at age 65, she had only made 2 payments, at that time there were 8 payers for every recipient. So a surplus built up. By the time I would be eligible there will be 2 payers for every recipient, if the Congress had NEVER touched a dime of the money, it would run out of money 20 years later than currently predicted. It has always been a Ponzi Scheme. They based it on two assumptions:
- Few Americans make it to 65, those that do don't live longer than 5-8 years
- There will ALWAYS be more young people than old people, that is how our country has grown...
