And Air Jordans, thanks for your support

It's not just the federal gov that screws ya, I'm get bent over by county, and school taxes so bad I'm being forced to sell my paid for home.. Down size, get off the waterfront, reduce my taxable worth. Sock the profits from the sale away to fund a more relaxed life style. SS will be used for medial insurance, taxes, and regular home, auto insurance. If the damn taxes don't break you, the insurance will. It's a lose lose situation...
Better have some money to retire, and have cars, trucks, and boats in good working order, and paid for.

But, but, but Obama wants the rest of the money to go toward his annual income as a former president and all of the other living former presidents income to be increased by $588,000 for the year 2017. He gave former presidents a 25K raise for 2016. This does not include the perks that they receive.

What ?? I don't think so.....my friend. I was/am blue collar American. No 'X-box/surely no 'weed' but, on the diapers - you may be right.
I had to work for a living. There was no silver spoon for this one.
That money was taken, and not by choice...and they used that money for years and years. In my case, over 40 years thank you!!
I still say, 'Entitlement my butt !!" This share paid by my employers believe me..as for you too, is considered as a part of your salary !!
This ain't rocket science...
Jeeezzzz

God Bless
Lee

I feel for you Billy. I have heard too many complain about Rains/Woods property taxes to consider moving there. You've got a beautiful place out there, but I can just imagine paying the tax bill.

If you never paid a dime in you don't get to collect SS

Im ear marking my SS funds to go to Kingwoodcat only!

He is gonna send me some back in 3 weeks.

It's a safety net. At some point a past generations' elected representatives decided that it would be better for society to force everyone to pay a percentage of their income to guarantee that everyone had something at retirement. Could I turn that 12% into more money at retirement than the government can? Most likely. I could also lose it all with poor investments. Would society be better off if I was given the opportunity to do that? Probably not, my country would be burdened by most retirees having zero money to their name.

The majority of Americans have little to no retirement savings. I doubt that can be attributed primarily to the fact that they believe SS will be enough to survive on, it's because people are too irresponsible to save money.

There is actually a lot of social security benefits paid to people that never paid a dime in. Disability is by far the most common and possibly the most abused. Spousal benefits are common and elderly benefits for people with no income that never paid into the system.

My mom is on Social Security because she is disabled at the age of 57.

She also gets my Dads Union death benefit monthly and a small military death benefit my Dad earned.

I asked her about the minuscule increase in her Social Security payment. She said it's fine since, "gas is down".

I know there are some people here who like higher gas prices. But lower gas prices actually help older folks like my mom make ends meet.

If you read the report lower energy costs are the biggest reasons for the small increase in cost of living this year.

With the demise of pension plans and the wonderful 401K program we now enjoy, we will see many more people being solely dependent on SS.

I have put the max in my 401k and after losing half in 2008 I am still not close to having a decent retirement. Our company plan options just never perform, that and the hidden cost you pay eat up most of the interest. Speaking of interest the low rates we have had for years now have killed retirement plans.

When I was a kid you could expect 10%, 3% seems to be the norm now. That is if you don't loose money.

My dad had 2 pensions and SS, mom retired school teacher had that and SS. They made more money retired than working. Those days are coming to an end quickly.

^^^^This. Lots of examples of people working at places exempt from SS and get great retirements on similar contributions. TRS, ERS, Galveston County, Matagorda County and even the Railroad Retirement pension that is somewhat part of SS. Somehow RR workers got a better deal, everyone should have a better deal than SS.

Interesting read on RR retirement

https://www.rrb.gov/opa/agency_overview.asp

I am far from an expert but I don't believe this is true. To collect SSDI you have to be eligible for social security (paid in at least 10 years). People not eligible can collect Supplemental Security Income, which is needs based rather than based on eligibility and income

A person can collect Social Security retirement benefits without ever having earned a dime in his or her life. Just be married to someone who gets a Social Security retirement check, and the non-earning spouse gets a check equal to 50% of the workers check.

Likewise, a disabled person who was disabled before a certain age (like during teenage years), can collect SSDI and later SSA under the parents earnings records.

This is all in addition to SSI mentioned by 04champ.