"15 people working, for every 1 retired person". .... The myth.

[SoCalDem]

I cringe every time I hear this canard. It may be a "fact", but no one ever follows up on the rest of the story.

Those 15 workers were "paying in", but since all that extra money was not necessary to support that 1 retired person, it was SPENT by congresspeople with extremely sticky fingers....and it was done repeatedly for FORTY years.

It always reminds me of when Grandma & Grandpa who live far away, and who will not be attending Christmas, send $100 to buy the grandchild a Christmas Present. By the time the money arrives, a TON of presents have already been bought. Why go buy yet another one? Why not just change the "to:/from: tag" on one already bought? The kid still gets the present.

This is what's been happening to SS/Medicare. Boomers were conned into "prepaying" their own retirement because this scenario was known and presented to the public decades ago.. Our legislators warned of this impending doomsday , so of course we voted to prepay, knowing that someday we would be needing the money.

What we failed to realize, is the fact that when spendaholics have money available, they will find a way to spend all they have, and more.

It was a no-win for the public, because at the same time we were all asked told to pay more and more, there actually was a need to bolster the payouts for people who were already retired, since many of them were not getting much at all because they had not paid into the system very much, and they were starting to experience a lengthening lifespan.. We were suckered into helping Granny & Gramps (something that was needed) , setting things up nicely for our parents' futures, and prepaying for ourselves. The whole "GREATEST GENERATION mantra probably started back then too...as a way to add a little extra guilt, because who doesn't love Granny & Gramps?

What we did not plan on, was the way government never delivered , and media totally pretended that nothing had ever happened, and that WE would be "blamed" for the whole mess just because we existed.

The government of now (then , our future) pretends that we came along as a total surprise, unprepared to "handle" our own retirements.

We arrive at retirement age::

minus home equity (or minus home, in some cases)
having survived multiple recessions during our work-lives
having lost (losing) jobs we still need for another 5-10 years
without pensions (replaced with sketchy 401-k's that do not measure up)
having lost buying power decade after decade
with little, if any savings
still supporting children, now grown with kids of their own
augmenting incomes for extremely aged parents who outlived their savings
with unaffordable or no health care insurance
with more media than ever, but media that callously ignores our plight, and criticizes us for noticing it ourselves

The 15-1 ratio blather we hear today is a hoax. It would be a valid point to be made IF the rest of the story were being told as well, but anytime anyone dares to bring that up, they are shouted down, laughed at or ignored.

We were the goose that laid the golden eggs ...our government has been eating omelets for decades, and now the goose is on the menu

[liberal N proud]

1. They kept robbing it - hoping it would bankrupt SS

It didn't work so they just decided in 2000 to bankrupt the nation so they could get kill Social Security.

[_ed_]

2. They stole from the SS fund

This is such a massive American myth: the SS fund runs a billions of dollars surplus. It was spent on tax cuts for billionaires and wars for oil.

[True Earthling]

3. Please explain how you can "spend" billions on tax cuts...

I'm all for raising taxes on the rich and corporations but you can't spend a tax cut.

[SoCalDem]

4. semantics.

giving a tax cut instead of collecting taxes from rich folks, "spends" money received for one purpose (SS) to run other parts of government that should be funded by the taxes those rich folks are NOT paying:)

[True Earthling]

I don't think that's how it's taught in ECON 101.. n/t

[_ed_]

8. So what?

The principle is sound. We're not writing a term paper.

[_ed_]

5. When you're running a deficit,

giving tax cuts is tantamount to spending. I'm not really interested in playing your semantic games.

[True Earthling]

6. You're the one playing semntic games n/t

[_ed_]

7. No such thing as "semntic games"

Do you actually care about SS policy, or do you just troll here?

[Dappleganger]

9. Same as with the state pension funds.

[unblock]

10. you forgot we had our social security contributions DOUBLED under reagan to PREVENT this problem!

reagan doubled payroll taxes precisely due to the widely anticipated retirement of the baby boomers. the resulting surplus would make social security solvent as far as the eye could see. and lo and behold, IT IS. not that the media or the right wing would let anyone know it....

[KoKo]

11. K&R...Good Points, there.

[FreeJoe]

12. Huh?

What do you mean the money was stolen? It was invested in government bonds. It is still there and we are now using them to supplement FICA tax revenue. What would you have done with the surpluses?

[eridani]

13. The logic of the retiree/worker ratio is patently ridiculous

"The key figure is the ratio of workers to pensioners." That is absolute nonsense. By that ridiculous logic we are all starving, because the ratio of farmers to total population has decreased even more than the support ratio. And that doesn't even consider the obvious fact that workers support children as well as retirees. In the US, the ratio of workers to total dependents was much lower in 1960 than it will be in 2030.

Why does no one even mention productivity increases? The real key figure is that taking 1947 as a baseline year, productivity in 2009 was 396. That is to sayt hat 60 years ago it took four workers to produce what one worker produces now. Fewer and rewer people produce more and more stuff, but in the fantasyland of deficit hawks those who have been displaced from producing stuff should never get any.

In the real world, the postwar trend toward earlier retirement has helped to disguise the problem of maintaining employment levels in the face of dramatic increases in productivity, but it is no longer enough. The three recessions since 2000 have all had jobless recoveries, putting the US on track to have 15 straight years (2000-2015) without a single net job gained. Real unemployment plus underemployment is around 20% now.

And all these conservative idiots think that what we need is even more old people in the workforce.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1381
http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm

[I Drink Water]

14. my microeconomics book has it at 3 to 1 in 2006, 9 to 1 in 1960, and 42 to 1 in 1946.