Granted, SS does encompass some good things such as benefits to spouse and children in the case of death, as well as SOME disability. However, disability is abused and welfare is abused. Most government programs are abused. I know of a guy who is 42 years old and his arthritis is "so bad" that he can't work and is on disability. While his wife is at work he plays 18+ holes of golf 6 days a week every single week and draws his disability. If you can swing a golf club every day you can be a Walmart greater every day.

When it comes to retirement, why can't we take responsibility for our own well-being and save enough money to take care of ourselves? Plenty of people do it.

Tell us how things would improve by eliminating them?

Where is your evidence of that?

75% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and close to half who are approaching retirement have no retirement savings at all

Americans are notoriously bad money managers but excel at conspicuous consumption

I said it above. You ignored it. Let�s s look at the macro level. I don�t care what site this is. The point here is to look at the data.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

There is a lot of money taken from our private sector. Every bit of that needs to be passed along and absorbed by the costs of goods and services. Again, that makes it quite expensive to compete globally here. My contention is that there is an awful lot of waste on these charts. SS is a very large percentage of this. I believe it�s a poor system. If people invested that money, or a portion of that money, they and their families would be much better off than what the government decides they will get when they are eligible. The answer is not increasing taxes on the young and working to grow government spending more. The answer is to decrease every bit of government spending that we can. From a macro level, it�s far and away the best thing for the economic success of this country. That�s exactly what is important. All of your conclusions that you drew about not having it are based on money. If the economic engine of this country keeps getting stifled, by spending more, then that is what will happen. Except, I say it�s for te exact opposite reasons that you state.

I say all of those programs should be cut. Tax less. Spend less. Compete more. Let capitalism succeed.

My contention is that the vast majority of those things should be handled by the private sector without government programs.

People would be able to save their money instead of watching the government spend it on useless junk like studying the poop of flies, giving Iran like $100,000,000,000 so that they'll tell us that their nuclear program is on hold, or things like that. I'd rather have my own money than watch Obama and Congress pi$$ it away. I would think nearly everyone would agree.

You do realize that if we got rid of the tax, people could save on their own, right? It's not like if you got rid of the program, paychecks would stay the same. Give people their money back and let them do with it what they please.

ETA: and I say this as someone whose grandmother lives 100% off her SS check. But imagine how much more she'd have each month if the government hadn't taken 12% of her salary for 40 years.

You are proving my point. Retirement benefits of SS exist to subsidize stupidity. As I said, the people who are wise with their money can retire just fine without social security. In order to do so you can�t live paycheck to paycheck. But there is no reason for most people to live paycheck to paycheck other than they are trying to make it look like they�ve �made it�.

2017 Average household income: $57,000
15.3% = $8,721 per year or $726.75/mo
If you began saving/investing that much at 25 and got a 3.12% return(today�s 5-year CD rate just for show) you would have ~$690,000. That is before you stop the BS spending and save additional money. If for instance, you saved $1,000 month(726.75 of it coming from SS, you only saving $273.25) you would have $950k. Get a 6% average return and have over $2 Million. 6% is not hard to find if you put down ESPN/Netflix and look.

Edit: Since June 18, 1978(exactly 40 years ago) the S&P 500 has returned an annualized rate of 11.7%. If you reinvested dividends. With the same $1,000/mo saved you now have $10.8 Million at age 65.

And this happens because we have an economy designed, based, and driven on consumption, rather than on production. Right now, interest rates on savings are so low that almost does make more sense to spend every dollar (my preference for some of that spending is appreciating assets, like rental property, or gold bullion). But even if interest rates were zero, it's still important to know the value of having enough cash on hand to cover several months worth of expenses.

Education and training on this is something that has to start early, like in kindgergarten - our school systems could probably incorporate household economics into the curriculum quite easily. I certainly recall that learning math was more fun when it involved dollar figures! By 8th grade, a kid should be able to figure out the effect of compound interest in both directions (saving for a purchase vs paying down a credit card after the purchase). Instead, we have an educational system where kids who are fresh in college are being bombarded with credit card offers, and have very little education or experience in how to handle those debts. They don't really understand how quickly those "easy" minimum monthly payments can eat up a monthly budget ...

Anyways, Social Security appeals to the same thinking (or lack thereof?) - the money gets taken before you ever see it, and you're getting a (questionable) promise of a guaranteed monthly payment during your retirement years. This, in my opinion, discourages a savings mindset among many folks who live paycheck to paycheck, because they've been conditioned all their lives that they're getting that guaranteed income at retirement ... without really understanding how little that monthly check will truly cover.

Raise taxes on the youngs. They're voting for more programs so let them have them.

It's a delusion and beyond realistic to think that everyone will ever do what you have described.

This is not directed at Zeek.

The private sector has often demonstrated it's level of integrity.

Your need to do some better research on your numbers as they are so far off is makes me laugh. I would love to see someone save $1000/mo 40 years ago. Top pay at Eastman Kodak for a journeyman mechanic was under $1,400/month before taxes. You are saying save $12,000 per month on a yearly salary of $ 17,000. Talk about having to live pay check to pay check.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_May_Fuller

This was the first SS recipient but it tells about how the fund was abused since its inception.
We still don't have it right as the fund is not a neutral fund now. I do believe we are paying in more than what we get back but thats money already gone.

Sort of like whats going to be the weight on top of our offspring, our unfunded liabilities.
On our own federal debts, do we obfuscate much? Of course we do. Its not my fault does not change it.

No I�m saying if you started today at 25 and saved for 40 years you could expect the first two results. I edited my post later to show that in the last 40 years the S&P 500 has more than doubled the first two numbers I showed at 11.7% because I knew somebody was coming along to say �You cannot expect to get 6%! Where are you getting 6%???�

And you adjusted your numbers based on inflation and tax liability of the dividends correct?

That you save 23% of your net income since you were 18 is admirable but it�s not the rule of highly compensated executives

No your edit shows "Edit: Since June 18, 1978(exactly 40 years ago) the S&P 500 has returned an annualized rate of 11.7%. If you reinvested dividends. With the same $1,000/mo saved you now have $10.8 Million at age 65."

I have been investing since 1976, some in CD's but most in 410K and your final number still does not add up to $10.8 Million. I can make it without SS because I didn't expect it to still be here when I retire.
But I agree, people having to keep up with Jones' to have the latest gadget and the newest car or truck and not saving & investing will be disappointed when they get retirement age with nothing to show for working all their life.

It shows that because if you did invest $1,000/mo for those 40 years that�s what you would have. I should�ve worded it different but the point I was trying to prove was if in the next 40 years you duplicate that 11.7% with the $1,000/mo savings I showed above in 40 years you would have a large sum of money. And you are right my math was off, my compounding calculator was set to compound monthly because I had just figured the CD. When compounding annually it comes out to a few bucks under $9 Million. Doesn�t discredit the point at all.