Is Social Security a Good Investment? Study Provides Reminder of Basic Issue With Public Pensions – Quicktake

If you're not into economics or following our pension crisis, this is a primer on one key matter.
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5 years ago

My coder is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the expenses. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on various websites for about a year and am nervous about switching to another platform. I have heard excellent things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all my wordpress content into it? Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!

T B
5 years ago

I have $6 Trillion to deposit into Social Security

Here’s how:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B90sU3A85q46OE9BZHJFSWEzbGM/view?uspdrivesdk

Thoughts?

P M
5 years ago

I enjoy the articles at Wirepoint immensely, but this article, while the central point is well taken misses the boat by a wide margin. SS is not comparable to a public sector defined benefit pension. For one you have zero guarantee with SS. They can and do change the rules on the fly. There is no tax payer funded union that endlessly lobbies, 24x7x365 for SS recipients like the public school teachers have. And most importantly there is no way to spike SS earning. The system is designed to rob high earners and take the just fruits of their honest… Read more »

P M
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

fyi, I respect the work you do and was not trying to denigrate your effort (sometimes that just needs to be said)

Rex the Wonder Dog!
5 years ago

Social Security should be just like CalTURDS, pension based on highest (not last) year of earned income employment. Social Security should have mandatory COLA’S of 2-3% irrespective of the actual rate of inflation. Social Security participants should be able to claim that Social Security is “deferred income” and guaranteed under the Contacts Clause. Social Security should allow me to “retire” at age 50, and then take another job somewhere else. Social Security is MINE, I EARNED it, I am ENTITLED to it. ….Hehehe…OK, that was just Rex being sarcastic, playing the fallacious Public Employee role so everyone who lives in… Read more »

Freddy
5 years ago

The Federal Government has the ability to print money and the states and local municipalities can only tax and we (Illinois) are taxed out. Social Security and Medicare costs are spread out thru out the entire country which reduces the per person cost. Illinois has 12.8 mil people and decreasing daily and is liable for approx $250 Billion ( one quarter of a trillion) to maybe 8-9% of total population so the per person costs are much higher. When pensioners file taxes they still have to pay federal tax? Does that not impair or diminish the pensions? Also management fees… Read more »

Tough Love
5 years ago

I too believe that the 5.7% may be “plausible”, but the reason why the dependence on …. “average career earnings”. SS payments are highly “progressive”, with the benefits payment decreasing as income rises (up to the SS maximum wage base). And a key point to keep in mind is that Public Sector workers have far higher “average incomes” than the average worker, and that is especially true for Safety workers. The SS Primary Insurance Amount formula is: For an individual who first becomes eligible for old-age insurance benefits or disability insurance benefits in 2018, or who dies in 2018 before… Read more »

Tough Love
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

I didn’t have time early to complete my thoughts….. which are as follows:

While the high earning PRIVATE Sector workers gets a VERY POOR return on the contributions, high-earning PUBLIC Sector workers do not, because their DB Plan formulas do NOT become less generous as income rises.

Any comparison of SS to Public Sector pensions is about as apples-to-oranges as it gets.

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“We are not in good shape” Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski told ABC 20 Champaign during a segment on Illinois’ latest population losses. Illinois was one of just three states to shrink in the 2010-2020 period and has lost another 300,000 people since then. Ted says things need to change. “It’s too expensive to live here, there aren’t enough good jobs and nobody trusts the government anymore. There’s just other places to go where you can be more satisfied.”

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