# "Hi, here's your monthly Social Security check, your reward......



## treeguy64 (Mar 5, 2020)

for working hard, all of your life! Guess what, though?  If you are a person who believes in continuing to work hard into your "Golden Years," we're going to reward your efforts by TAXING the very checks you've earned by your previous hard work! 

That's right! You might earn twenty in annual Social Security, earn forty more working hard, and we'll reward you by taxing most, if not all, of that twenty, depending on how thoroughly you understand the ever more confusing tax hoops we have set up for you to jump through! Welcome to the twilight of your existence! It's great, right?"

In another time, another place, people so abused, by a governmental body, would storm the offices of the same, and hang the management from some sturdy Oaks. Instead, we US Citizens simply bend over and take what is given to us. Shameful, in truth!


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## Don M. (Mar 5, 2020)

Yup, having to pay taxes on SS seems almost like being taxed twice.  About the only people who can avoid such taxes are those living solely on their SS checks, i.e., almost living in poverty....or those who don't live long enough to collect SS. 

However, when people add up what they get in benefits, vs. what they paid in, most who reach at least their life expectancy get back far more than they ever paid in....so, at the end of the day, SS becomes a fairly good "investment" for most workers.


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## mathjak107 (Mar 5, 2020)

ss is means tested in a few different ways .

of course if your income is over the limit up to 85% of your ss can be taxed . but your contributions are means tested too .

What most people don’t know is that our employment tax dollars don’t all buy the same amount of future benefit. Some of our employment tax dollars buy six times as much in benefits as others.

According to the most recent Trustees Report, for instance, the first $767 of “average indexed monthly earnings” (a complex formula that adjusts earnings over time) is credited at a 90 percent rate, assuring the lowest wage workers of a retirement benefit nearly equal to their earned wage.

Wages of more than $767 a month but less than $4,624 a month are credited at a 32 percent rate. This means retirement benefits increase at a much lower rate. The benefit pinching, however, does not end there.

For wages of more than $4,624 a month up to the wage base maximum ($113,700 for 2013), the crediting rate is only 15 percent. Thus, all the wages earned — and employment taxes paid — over that $55,488-a-year “bend point” gain benefits at only one-sixth the rate of the lowest wage earners.

In effect, the Social Security benefits formula functions as a sharply graduated benefits “tax,” reducing the benefits that accrue to higher wages by 85 percent. The higher your means, the lower your benefit.


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## OneEyedDiva (Mar 21, 2020)

treeguy64 said:


> for working hard, all of your life! Guess what, though?  If you are a person who believes in continuing to work hard into your "Golden Years," we're going to reward your efforts by TAXING the very checks you've earned by your previous hard work!
> 
> That's right! You might earn twenty in annual Social Security, earn forty more working hard, and we'll reward you by taxing most, if not all, of that twenty, depending on how thoroughly you understand the ever more confusing tax hoops we have set up for you to jump through! Welcome to the twilight of your existence! It's great, right?"
> 
> In another time, another place, people so abused, by a governmental body, would storm the offices of the same, and hang the management from some sturdy Oaks. Instead, we US Citizens simply bend over and take what is given to us. Shameful, in truth!


Well actually management would only be following policies set forth by the government (can't get political here). It's sad that seniors have their SS taxed, I agree with you. Hell, I don't even work anymore and part of mine is taxed (by the feds, not the state of N.J.). Adding insult to injury is the so called COLAs we get which are unrealistically based upon Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) and how much of those COLAs are eaten into by Medicare premium increases.


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## mathjak107 (Mar 21, 2020)

None of the CPI indexes are supposed to reflect anyone’s personal cost of  living ..
They are a price index not a cost of living index ....they merely are designed to take the temperature of different price changes in the 1500 mini economies that make up America ....many of the components we don’t even use or need ...they use different versions of the CPI so as to expand products in different ways . But none reflect a cost of living .....no way an average of prices between Alabama or Missouri and nyc will ever reflect nyc costs as an example 

a cost of living index would have to account for exactly what you buy ,where you live ...it has to take in to account how many times you actually buy the item personally ....it has to account for the quality level of what you buy ..it has to account for geographical price differences

higher priced items see more price increases but last longer ...we all make very different substitutions as well ...I may go from ice cream to fruit salad if ice cream is not on sale ....

here in nyc millions are rent stabilized ..that effects the price change index and you may not be stabilized .

so never confuse a pure price change index with actual cost of living indexs ...in fact ours over the last two years is lower than 5years ago


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## oldmontana (Mar 21, 2020)

Don M. said:


> Yup, having to pay taxes on SS seems almost like being taxed twice.  About the only people who can avoid such taxes are those living solely on their SS checks, i.e., almost living in poverty....or those who don't live long enough to collect SS.
> 
> However, when people add up what they get in benefits, vs. what they paid in, most who reach at least their life expectancy get back far more than they ever paid in....so, at the end of the day, SS becomes a fairly good "investment" for most workers.


One reason why you get more than you paid in is because your employer matched what you paid in.  Many people forget that fact.


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## mathjak107 (Mar 21, 2020)

Plus paid out , there are Spousal adders for spouses with their own records , spousal  benefits for spouses with no record  ,  survivor benefits and benefits for kids, and Ssdi


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## fmdog44 (Mar 25, 2020)

At the Social Security Motel you pay one sum for the stay and a second sum for checking out.


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## mathjak107 (Mar 26, 2020)

for anyone who wondered  if social security was going to go bust there is your answer ...you see how fast they came up with 2 trillion dollars


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