I grew up in a trailer park, in a single wide trailer with my mom and 3 brothers. My father was a drunk and beat my mother and us. She walked out on him taking us with her. She worked 4 jobs at one point to keep us fed and clothed and a trailer roof over our heads. She finally met a great guy and they wound up getting married.

We did not grow up rich at all. My step father worked 2 jobs most of the time and almost right up until he had a heart attack and was forced to stop working. But by then me and my brothers had already left the nest. We all worked hard. I worked hard in school, studied and did well for myself. I worked as a teen to help out as did all of my brothers. Myself, I went to college with a scholarship. One of my brothers was accepted and attended the US Air Force Academy. My other brother went into the trades, learned HVAC and now runs his own HVAC company. He's a multi-millionaire.

Despite us growing up poor, we somehow managed to make it. That's the American dream brother. We didn't ask for handouts, we didn't blame "the rich", we just set goals and worked hard to achieve them.

I don’t find that a useful exercise because SS was never set up to be an individual investment or retirement account.

You’re right in simply considering it as a tax that you may or may not benefit from.

We are entitled to get the benefits that we paid for. The age for full benefits for future retirees will be tweaked upwards but the performance of ones other investments has no bearing on a government benefit you paid into your entire life. Also, how do you define “rich” for the purpose of stealing a lifetime of benefits from someone who paid for it for half a century?

Through 2025 between SS and Medicare for me is $578084( that includes the employer side)

Your SS “benefit” is whatever is active at the time you become eligible. You are not promised today’s benefit tomorrow.

SS has a marketing problem as well as an input problem.

Everyone understand how it works. But it is a promised benefit and a third rail of politics. No way the wealth distributionalists will have the political capital to just steal it all after the fact. “Rich” airline pilots will still get their benefits unless the Leninists get full control.

BTW how rich is rich? If someone is rich, shouldn’t they also be stripped of Medicare and have to pay full retail inflated costs until they’re no longer “rich”? If not why not?

According to Joe you succeeded because of your privilege, obviously.

Our privilege was so great it earned us white bread, baloney and mayo sammiches for dinner many nights of the week...

What? You had bread? Too much food…

You’re out of touch with reality. :rolleyes:

Not interested in engaging you in your political diatribe. But clearly not everyone understands how SS works.