The biggest scam boomers are getting away with is convincing us all that social security isn't something we can rely on as we age.

You’d think people would be rallying harder around social security considering how little people have saved for retirement.

Forget about when you age. You might become disabled and need it tomorrow. It happened to me. Support and protect social security because you might really need it someday. And someday might not be that far away.

SS probably isn’t going anywhere. Maybe payouts are cut. But stiffing the largest generation in history as they come into their prime voting years is not on any politicians agenda.

That’s said, I’m aiming for a particular lifestyle even after I’m done working. And I won’t factor SS into my planning.

The really sad thing about this is how long we've known it was a problem. I remember watching a TV show when I was a kid. A young person was arguing with an old person about how there wouldn't be any social security left after the old person's generation was done sucking it dry. I was probably 12 when I heard that joke. I'm now 40.

Boomers have had ample time to do something about this. But they don't care enough to fix anything. They're getting theirs, and that's all they care about.

It doesn't help that people conflate the Social Security trust fund with Social Security itself. If the trust fund runs out that benefits will be cut, but still go out. As long as Social Security taxes are collected, Social Security benefits will go out. Currently, the CBO predicts Social Security benefits at 75% a decade from now and 70% seventy years from now assuming nothing changes about the program. There are solutions that can be taken to fill in that shortfall. I suspect that when boomers are staring down the barrel of a 25% cut in Social Security in 2034 some sort of fix will be put in, which would in turn likely go towards filling in our own shortfall.

Remember when Bernie wanted to lower retirement age, increase payment amounts AND properly fund it, we should do that. There is 0 reason we cannot do that, we just need to push for it to happen so hopefully it will happen by the time we get there.💀

Boomer here. Long post, but it should give you perspective. And the boomers ARE correct. There *IS* a possibility that you may not be able to depend upon it, in particular without any other type of retirement funding such as 401k's.

Even though I am a boomer and just became eligible to retire last week, I cannot depend on SS alone. Not in today's economy. Add in my 401k and IRA's, then yeah.

First... I believe SS will always be here. However, in what form will it be is the real question. The reserves/trust fund will be gone by 2035 if I remember correctly, which means what comes in, goes out to beneficiaries, with nothing left in reserve.

So... in able to keep SS viable in the future there are really only 2 things that can be done... increase SS income, and/or reduce SS spending. PERIOD.

Our politicians have not had the balls to do anything since the 1960s.

Yes, SS is the third rail of politics. And that 3rd rail prevented SS from 'keeping up with the times'. But math is math. There are more people collecting SS, and the ratio of contributors to beneficiaries is less. Life expectancy has increased so more people are collecting and for longer. I repeat.. It is simple math.

The biggest oversights are that SS retirement age has not really been adjusted since 1960 and the current tax rate of 6.2% (plus match) has been in effect since 1990.

Let's start at 1960, this gives us 25 years of the system to get up and running from 1945, and have a generation of contributions.

• In 1960, there were 5.1 workers per beneficiary; that ratio has dropped to 2.8 today.
  • https://www.ssa.gov/history/ratios.html
• Life expectancy at birth has increased from 69.7 years in 1960 to 76.33 in 2021. Side note: in 2015 it was 79.4 years. Still no change.

To 'save' or extend the current benefit payment of SS, a couple things will have to happen. Take your pick. All, some or none.

1. Raise the SS withholding tax percentage from the current 6.2% (plus employer match of 6.2%) by another 1-1.5% (or more).
2. In addition, remove the income cap (~$160k), but still limit the max benefit.
3. Raise the age of 'full retirement' from 67 for people born in 1965 or later to 69+
4. Raise the age of early retirement from 62 to 64+
5. Reduce the benefit payouts
6. Cap max benefits and reduce CoLA
7. Means testing

Social security only works if there is more young people vs old. We're going to lose it due to the shrinking growing population. Its basically over the time to having kids was 10 years ago to secure the future.

Mid-Boomer here. The Social Security message has been around since the 1970s. Not sure why u are blaming Boomers (most likely your parents and/or grandparents) as the message is mostly promoted by Millennials on TikTok. Note: Boomers (aged 60-78) that are still participating in the workforce continue to pay Social Security & Medicare Taxes just like you. I have been paying since 1969.

I highly doubt social security is going to go away.

It would destabilize the country too much

All they have to do to save it is to keep raising the age requirements

Sure, it’s not going anywhere, but they will keep increasing the age until it’s economically viable. We won’t be able to withdraw until 79 or something ridiculous.

I’m not counting on getting any SS.

it’s not the boomers telling us this it’s our fkin peers. I’ve never heard anyone BUT millenials and younger say that preparing for the future is useless. Super alarming how many people are refusing to adjust their budget because they perceive the lost quality of life as a greater value than increased security in the long term. No boomer out there is gonna tell a young person “fuck it live for today because it’s not certain what will happen later” that’s simply not the experience that they had. It’s the exact opposite. It’s not boomers saying this it’s doomers, and it’s them that need to shut it.

My boomer dad doesn’t get this when I tell him I’m not counting on a dime of Social Security. It’s basically a mandatory participation government run Ponzi scheme. Fun thing happens with offshoring jobs and globalization, much fewer new contributors to the system which spells curtains

Oh FFS! There is no boomer conspiracy against you. I am so sick of reading that crap.

You are blaming a whole age cohort for decisions made by a political cohort, comprised of people of multiple generations.

Malign entities would like to drive wedges between groups of Americans before the elections. Don't fall for it. They aim to dismantle democracies and install religious kleptocracies over democratic nations.

BTW, If you haven't read the policy proposals for social security proposed in Project 2025, this is what the Republicans have in mind for SS. Every boomer I know is appalled at these ideas.

https://accountable.us/report-project-2025-manifesto-co-author-stephen-moore-has-toxic-history-of-misogynistic-racist-and-anti-social-security-rhetoric/

absolutely delusional if anyone thinks anything happens to social security. the only thing that will happen is the full retirement age will adjust up again.

It would be brainlessly easy to fix from a technical standpoint. Just make it a progressive tax rather than a flat tax. Also, reclassify it as an actual tax, because that's what it is, a tax to pay for a national pension and insurance plan.

It isn’t the boomers saying this; it’s the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare Trust.

Honestly, we are all doing ourselves a disservice by constantly publicizing how we cannot count on social security.

Reddit trends very young, as in boomers are a small percentage. So how is it the boomers who are scamming the younger generations? I have seem explanations on Reddit, and I have put forth some also, that even if nothing is done, 80% +/- of benefits will be paid. And to fix SS, there are a few things can be done now and it will be fine. But, any posts to that effect get downvoted.

It would be easy to fund. There's just not the political will.

You just have to remove the limit so anyone making over 100k contributes a little more.

Boom. ss is funded forever.

"I'm glad I don't have kids" "I don't want children"

"We need to fight for continuation of social security"

Age 40. "reddit I'm very lonely and just now realizing what I've done having no children where can I meet someone"

Many such cases ....

Social security will be fine. Headlines hand wringing its fate are misleading.

War in Israel and Ukraine ain't cheap and CIA goals are more important than you ever getting to retire I guess.

It's supposed to run out by 2035. That seems factual more than anything.

I'm 40 and have been paying into SS since I was 14. I honestly can't imagine how fucking irate I'm gonna be when I'm about to retire and the fucktard politicians either close the program or cut payments to nothing.

Of course it will still be here 40 or 50 years from now…….its just the retirement age will be 72 by then. 

I feel like the general sentiment is that one can easily out-earn social security. It has lower returns than the S&P500, so simply by dca'ing into SPX, you'll do better than social security would pay out.

Don't count on SS. Ever! By 2035 SS will pay out only 80% of what you are due. Welcome to reality.

Why would you want to 'save' something that provides an extremely shitty rate of return compared to investing the money yourself?

Just switch it to mandatory savings in private accounts for folks who enter the workforce the day-after legislation passes - make it actually 'your money' like most of America thinks it is - and be done.

How is this a scam? I am glad I convinced my Boomer parents of this and encouraged them to start saving more before they hit retirement age.

I like the idea of not relying on social security on an individual level. But as a society? Hell no. The masses didn't get the memo and most young people do and will rely on social security.

Retirement plan: Thailand

SS wasn't meant to be solely depended on for retirement. But that's what the government has done.

Many "retired" people on social security cannot live on social security alone.

It's a terrible plan that most can easily be replaced with something like theplanforamerica.us which models similar situations in other countries that do an incredible job with their retirement social programs or at best be scrapped entirely for a young enough crowd to have time to prepare for retirement.

Social security will become insolvent approximately 10 or so years from now.

I’d rather them give me back my money so I can invest it better and be in control of my own retirement rather than hoping and guessing whether the government will be there for me in 25 years.

I haven't met a fellow millennial yet who thinks we're actually going to get something out of social security. I've assumed since I entered the work force that I was very unlikely to get out what I'm paying in. Unfortunately, my voting hasn't gotten anyone in office to actually do anything about it yet.

I don't know why you'd say that, they've been telling us since we were kids that it was gonna run out

They are right though. People don't realize how much social security has changed since it came into law(at first it was 1% of your income up to the equivalent of 30k/year(after inflation) with the employer paying the same amount.

it used to be that middle class workers could meet the threshold where they didn't pay social security tax anymore. Politicians have lied to us for decades. That isn't boomers fault(they were the first generation who started doing the math realizing that the program isn't funded in a way that will last forever)

and more and more people are getting SSDI and people are also living longer. The bean counters in charge of Social security have for the most part just kicked the can down the road(there were major changes to help the program in the early 80's with solvency)

The social security model requires younger workers to pay into the system to support the older generation. There may not be enough young workers to support older generations due to the declining birth rate in the USA, unless the population is supported in another way.

I'm 45 I never planned on it being solvent enough for me to retire before 70 as the goal posts will always be moving. It's not so much the income I will need but the health care.

Um… I hate to break this to you…

I have been paying into social security since I was six years old.

Now that they are talking about pushing retirement age back to 70 I and many others like me are quite likely to never receive a penny back for everything we have put in.

This is the real reason they are proposing this change, it will reduce the number of social security claims from around 17% of the population who live to be 65 to a mere 13.7% who live to be 70.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

Honestly, we are all doing ourselves a disservice by constantly publicizing how we cannot count on social security

Given that social security is not a fully funded program and the political climate, it's good advice to tell people not to rely on full social security. There's a high chance that people will get around 75% of the benefits and at an older age.

we are handing out permission to the boomer political leaders to keep raiding social security

This is a myth. Nobody is raiding social security. This is a simple matter of the program not being set up with adequate funding. It was set up like a pyramid scheme where it works as long as you get more and more new young people. As soon as that stops the whole thing falls apart. It should have been set up where each person puts in enough to fund themselves when they're older. That way it's funded no matter what the birthrates.

As far as solutions, personally I support raising taxes on the wealthy, who have benefited the most from putting off fixing social security funding. The most obvious way this can be done is by removing the income cap for social security taxes.

As a boomer who has been drawing my SS and my wife hers, I am concerned about the future of Social Security. The single biggest fix at this moment would be to eliminate the deduction cap- currently, anyone making more than $140k a year currently does not pay into SS for any earnings above that $140K amount. There is also a cap on how much one will be paid when they start to draw their benefit, that cap should remain in place, and with the additional taxes being paid in, the fund should be solvent for decades, if not longer.

Back during the 2000 presidential race, Democrat Al Gore suggested that SS funds should be isolated from federal spending, and the revenue created by SS taxes should be set aside separate from other government programs and only be used to pay SS benefits. He was soundly criticized as being too much of an alarmist, Social Security will be fine. Those that expressed that dismissive attitude are also those who would very much like to get their hands on our SS trust funds and privatize the program so the Wall Street types can get their grubby hands on our monies.

Social Security was not only designed to help seniors have a dignified retirement, but also as a fund to provide for widows and surviving children of a breadwinner who has passed away much too early, and Social Security is there for those who are disabled and cannot support themselves as adults participating in the work force.

Anyone who continues to express deep concerns about the solvency of Social Security and does not embrace the idea of removing the deduction cap is trying to work towards privatizing the trust fund. Do not put any credence into statements about the insolvency if there are no suggestions on how to fix it.

It's not "boomer" doing this it's younger libertarian types who pretend we can all do better with our Edward Jones accounts or some shit.

Boomers don't want to touch it because they're getting it or about to get it..

But yeah, the more you repeat the half baked "wisdom" that SS won't be there for you, the easier it'll be to take it away.

the social security system in sweden has weathered many challenges over the decades, providing a model for how determined citizens can band together to sustain critical retirement benefits for future generatiuons.

I'm a boomer and everytime I hear anyone say it wont be there I always tell them do not let them get you to believe that. it will be there for you but there are still new deal haters who still hold a grudge.. dont let them fool you!

Its not just the boomers, its anyone alive. Government, full of plenty of non-boomers in congress and is non functional. Need to get off the boomers tip. Meme is played out.

People are telling you that, not an entire generation. Seeing the world in terms of cohorts makes little to no sense to me. It’s not like millennials have an annual conference where we set our agenda for the coming years. Neither do boomers.

The only people I know who have spread that rumor for years and years are Millennials themselves. My own kids used to tell me this when they were teens. Boomers have been arguing with them since it all started that it's not true and SS WILL be there for them. It's always been fixable. With some well-known and understood tweaks here and there. It's not all Boomers who want to "raid SS and take it away from Millennials." It's mostly Republicans threatening constantly to cut those benefits so they can give tax cuts to the rich. That's definitely a thing. But it's hard to cut entitlements because those that receive them currently vote. In big numbers.

And you are exactly right! You guys are an even bigger generation of voters. You CAN protect those benefits by voting for candidates that support keeping SS and Medicare and other social programs you support strong. That tends to be Democrats, in my experience, but you will decide who represents your needs the best. I'm happy to hear you say you think you can do something about it because it's true! That's the single best thing we can ALL do to ensure you get the same benefits we did. We will vote with you for those protections as we want that for you.

Why? Because you are our children. We love you and want you to succeed. We want you to have the SS you have earned just as we have the SS we have earned. (It's not a lot, BTW.). But when you retire, everything helps. Pulease stop painting all Millennials as helpless victims of big-bad-Boomers! It's just not true. All us Boomers do not wish ill on all Millennials. Every generation is diverse. We are not some monolithic group and neither are you or Gens X, Z, Alpha, etc. All this Boomer vs Millennial FUD is just divisive and doesn't allow for meaningful dialogue or coalition building. We could do some great things working together like protect social programs like SS and Medicare or even get "Medicare for All" passed while we are still here. Lots of us old Dems and Progressives out here.

Everytime I say something optimistic like this here I get piled on and downvoted but I'm gonna keep saying it. We are NOT, as an entire generation, your enemy. There are plenty of people on the other side of me politically whose policies and views of what's good for America that I strongly disagree with but they do not represent any entire generation. You have plenty of supporters from the Boomers who will join forces. We are old. We may be dying and we may be leaving soon but we still vote!

Boomers heard it from their conservative parents. And I hear conservative millenials spouting it to the next generation.

The real story isn't that social security is running dry. It's that SS can be preserved (and expanded) by making a minor adjustment to the cap of SS tax witholdings for rich people, but there is tremendous political pressure from the rich friends of politicians to avoid doing that.

That said, I'm confident that SS is going nowhere, in part because people who anticipate its demise don't realize what a horrific (and completely preventable) humanitarian crisis it would very quickly create: 65 million Americans from all walks of life (including middle class retirees) would be thrown into poverty and possible homelessness within the first two months, creating a cascading effect on their friends / neighbors / loved ones that would create a mass panic and jam the economy to a halt from a dozen directions at once.

As easy as it is to be a cynic about this, the repercussions would be too disastrous to too many people to remain unfixed in the long term.

Social security isn’t going anywhere. What are millions of old poor people going to do with no money, live on the streets? Retirement shanty towns? Not to mention, old people vote, so it’s basically political suicide.

The biggest scam is telling you it's a generational thing, while it is big business milking you until you die.

Really?! Social Security is the biggest scam? Not defunding education or denying climate change. What good is social security if there is no good place to live and we are surrounded by idiots. Hmmm. Kinda feels like we are already living it.

Who is "raiding" Social Security and how are they "raiding" it?

You are confused. It isn’t boomer political leaders. It is only republicans. Not one single democrat wants to cut or end social security or Medicare. They are the basis of our social safety net. Without them most retirees would live in poverty with no medical care.

ANYWAY. Just remember, social security is a very small amount of money. Please plan for your retirement.

All this sturm and drang over SS has been happening since SS began. It got worse under Reagan. Rupugs have been trying to kill it on behalf of the richest folks in the country who DON'T WANT SS reform - namely, raising the lid. If that happened - and it might, if there is a blue wave resulting in a democratic supermajority. If the lid is raised SS will be around Forever and likely expanded. Also, SS is TOTALLY self funding. Powerful forces trying to instill the idea that SS is in jeapordy, and no one ought to count on it. Bottom line, vote blue.

There are more of us than there are of them. When do our excuses stop, and we start rallying for our own interests? That's right. Never.

Boomers have been carping about Social Security and Medicare for decades because they are both wildly successful Democrat policies. They are also 1) what keeps seniors housed and 2) what gets Big Med paid. If SS and Medicare run dry, the US housing and healthcare markets collapse. In short: don't believe the hype about these programs failing. Ain't happenin.

You want to spend your time, effort and money to save the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security?

Boomers were "Millennials" one day too you know, and guess what, they were the free loving flower children of the 60s! Who didn't believe in "the man"... Blamed the generation before them... these are now the people you're blaming.

If you put the same amount of money into a simple low risk index fund instead of the SSI that delivers a pittance of a 2% return, you could have millions of dollars at retirement instead.

But you want to fight to keep the plan that will give you crumbs and be beholden to the Gov?

You need to realize SS is the slush fund for do nothing political elites - FROM ALL PARTIES.

Trust runs out. But here’s the kicker.

Small increase in tax makes it solvent again. Look it up. Pretty small changes.

This is not something either damn side is willing to talk about. But will do when push comes to shove.

Every gen says it won’t be there. My dad said it wouldn’t be there for him. It is.

It's easy to identify the problem and I see it too, but the solution seems like a pipedream in all honesty. How the hell do we fund saving social security? Increase taxes, increase SS contributions, print more money? All of which can't be absorbed for the average American right now who is already struggling. SS is tied to medicare and the healthcare system too, both of which we tried to fix years ago and got the Affordable care act. It's better than nothing and I'm grateful for what it did do, but it's a compromise nonetheless and all but the tearing the whole system down and building it back is just another Band-Aid buying time on an unsustainable system . The money has to come from somewhere. The country is drowning in debt, and more people than ever are encroaching on retirement as the boomer generation gets there or already are.

It's not that I won't place my vote to try to save it, but I'm not optimistic. I'm not depending on it and have to assume they'll probably raise the age to 70 sooner than later and/or reduce benefits to buy it time, but as it stands within the decade it's mathematically fated to collapse if left alone. I have a responsibility to ignore it as part of my calculation in retirement. If they save it and it adds then it's icing on the cake but I don't want to set myself up for failure in retirement