This was sent to me as an email.
-----
Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500.
If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you'd have
$892,919.98.
If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65)
and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit!
If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.
The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had.
Congressional benefits = free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days; now that's welfare. And they have the nerve to call my social
security retirement entitlements?
We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless.
They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it’s time for
us to collect, the government is running out of money.
Sad isn't it?
*THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THIS CALCULATION IS THEY FORGOT TO FIGURE IN THE PEOPLE WHO DIED BEFORE THEY COLLECTED THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY! WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO?
------
What do you think?
What Do You Think?
November 19th, 2011 at 06:41 pm
November 19th, 2011 at 09:21 pm 1321737675
A: "You are not only paying for retirement benefits, but also disability and life insurance. Moreover, wealthier people are helping subsidize poorer workers. We also are paying for the fact that as the system was set up and expanded, earlier generations of retirees got much more in benefits than they contributed in payroll taxes.
The rate of return earned by the Treasury bonds in the trust funds is pretty good. But to talk about the rate of return for individual workers is a bit misleading because Social Security was never intended to generate wealth, but rather to supply an income floor."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/a-primer-on-social-security/2011/09/08/gIQAAvYkCK_blog.html
November 20th, 2011 at 12:22 pm 1321791779
November 20th, 2011 at 08:43 pm 1321821833
Amber: I agree, it's frustrating.