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this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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So just to translate for non Americans: Social Security is a kind of guaranteed old age / retirement pension, by the looks of it.
Yes and no.
It's a social safety net. Yes, it can be used as a retirement plan, but it isn't guaranteed and some pensions/retirement plans preclude collection of social security benefits even though you paid in.
My father was a firefighter, and due to his excellent pension he gets like 12 dollars a month from social security. But he's also doing fine because of his pension.
Meanwhile someone who has a catastrophic event in their life but isn't at retirement age may be able to collect benefits.
The biggest problem with social security (aside from the maximum contribution bullshit alluded to in the OP) is that it is treated as a primary retirement plan by most people. That was not its original purpose.
It was also established with a retirement age of 65 when the average lifespan was 63, so even for those using it for retirement. So on average most people didn't live long enough to collect it AND most that did live long enough didn't collect it anyway, AND for those who did, it was only for a few years in average.
But now a majority of Americans are using it for decades. Of course it's running out of money.
I don't think as many people as you imagine are choosing "wow I can't wait to barely be able to afford rent and food when I retire on a fixed income" as a PRIMARY retirement plan. I think a lot of people are having a hard time saving for retirement thanks to inflation and a stock market crash every 10 years, and are grateful that with social security they'll at least have SOMETHING. I wouldn't call that "choosing social security as the primary retirement plan" I'd call that "work your whole life and barely afford to survive when you're too old to work anymore"
I'm not sure that's something to blame or resent people over.
Of course it is. If you as an individual can't accurately predict world economic conditions 40 years in advance, you are a complete failure of a person.
Should be obvious, but since people are stupid, /s