Retirement Targets

[yowza]

It is.

Not at 100%.

 

[Stormin]

Many don't have hobbies and when they retire, they sit and stare at the walls. The sudden lack of productivity basically kills them off. My dad got one SS check before he died. I know others that did manual labor most of their lives and when they quit working, had a heart attack within a few months and were gone.

Sad. Some people need the job to give themselves purpose. People like your Dad would thrive on part time help to others while still collecting SS. My wife keeps me busier than I want to be. Boredom can be a bad thing leading to depression.

 

[benman82]

Time to lift the cap on the earnings subject to SS tax. Problem solved. No SS payments need to be cut. Only thing stopping it is the refusal to tax the top 2%.

This wouldn't help at all. If you raise the cap then people will just transition over to working as "independent contractors" and "paying themselves w2 salaries" considerably under the SS limit (think $60,000-80,000 of ~$167,000 limit) and taking the rest as s-corp distributions. So lifting the earnings cap on SS will actually make the problem worse.

The problem with trying to change it so that businesses have to pay SS / FICA / SE on distributions is that the people who can afford to donate to politicians are the people impacted, so it's just not going to happen.

They will definitely lift the cap and tell everyone that it'll fix things, but it's not going to work.

The only ways for SS to stay solvent are
1.) pay out drastically less money (raise the age / lower the payouts per person / deny it to people)
2.) print more money out of nothing (and thus inflate the currency)
3.) get a lot more workers to pay in now (surge in immigration of people who are net payers into the system)
4.) have a massive increase in productivity of people working (new oil / tech boom? )

IMO Social Security is too far gone to fix, and they're going to full-scale replace it with something else like Universal Basic Income, which will be paid for initially by taxing robots / AI, but will mostly be paid via printing money and inflation. And then the USD will collapse over 20-30 years.

 

[yowza]

This wouldn't help at all. If you raise the cap then people will just transition over to working as "independent contractors" and "paying themselves w2 salaries" considerably under the SS limit (think $60,000-80,000 of ~$167,000 limit) and taking the rest as s-corp distributions. So lifting the earnings cap on SS will actually make the problem worse.

The problem with trying to change it so that businesses have to pay SS / FICA / SE on distributions is that the people who can afford to donate to politicians are the people impacted, so it's just not going to happen.

They will definitely lift the cap and tell everyone that it'll fix things, but it's not going to work.

The only ways for SS to stay solvent are
1.) pay out drastically less money (raise the age / lower the payouts per person / deny it to people)
2.) print more money out of nothing (and thus inflate the currency)
3.) get a lot more workers to pay in now (surge in immigration of people who are net payers into the system)
4.) have a massive increase in productivity of people working (new oil / tech boom? )

IMO Social Security is too far gone to fix, and they're going to full-scale replace it with something else like Universal Basic Income, which will be paid for initially by taxing robots / AI, but will mostly be paid via printing money and inflation. And then the USD will collapse over 20-30 years.

You close any exemptions or moves like you suggest when you remove the cap. Where richie richs get around things is when they are "paid" in stock options or grants and then they borrow against those or something to that effect. Buffet has been a master at saying he pays a lower rate than his secretary.

It will get fixed by some means. I would guess no one will believe the fix is perfect.

 

[qwerty]

You have to have some sort of plan for retirement. Sitting in a chair watching TV isn't going to cut it.

Damn right the chair won't cut it, that is what laying on the couch is for.

 

[CycloneDaddy]

It would be much less distorting, and easier politically I think, to means test SSI benefits. e.g. if you have $100k in income in retirement (from RMDs, passive income, whatever) or net assets over say, $5 million, then you don't get SSI. Just phase it out over $X, like lots of other benefits.

SSI was only meant to help the destitute elderly, widows, and oprhans. It was never meant to be a public pension. And when the retirement age was set at 65, that was the avg life expectancy - half the people were never going to collect. So I think means-testing it is a good thing to do, even though it means I will never get a dime.

Be pretty ****** to not get social security when I have paid into it since I was 14. Your plan is penalizing savers and that isnt fair.

 

[yowza]

Since have access to the info, for family health coverage with 2k deductible and 80% coinsurance from Aetna, the annual premium we just renewed is roughly $43k per year gross annual premium cost. And we have a PEO and are pooled so negotiate in larger numbers.

 

[KnappShack]

Be pretty ****** to not get social security when I have paid into it since I was 14. Your plan is penalizing savers and that isnt fair.

Since I'm on a Star Wars thing...

 

[yowza]

Damn right the chair won't cut it, that is what laying on the couch is for.

Recliner and recline back with some built in heat action in the colder months.

 

[drmwevr08]

Not at 100%.

I didn't say that, but it is transferable.

 

[CascadeClone]

Be pretty ****** to not get social security when I have paid into it since I was 14. Your plan is penalizing savers and that isnt fair.

Its not much different than raising the cap, is it? You need the same amount of money, so whether you tax that money by raising the cap, or save it by not paying it out later, isn't it going to be roughly the same number of people impacted? It's not like the feds are investing it on anyone's behalf and reaping the time value of money lol.

 

[CycloneDaddy]

Its not much different than raising the cap, is it? You need the same amount of money, so whether you tax that money by raising the cap, or save it by not paying it out later, isn't it going to be roughly the same number of people impacted? It's not like the feds are investing it on anyone's behalf and reaping the time value of money lol.

Im all for lifting the cap or ar least raising it. My wife and I both earn under the cap but we have made choices to ensure we have a nice retirement.

 

[BCClone]

It is.

Kinda. You don’t get both. It’s a strange set of options.

 

[BCClone]

You close any exemptions or moves like you suggest when you remove the cap. Where richie richs get around things is when they are "paid" in stock options or grants and then they borrow against those or something to that effect. Buffet has been a master at saying he pays a lower rate than his secretary.

It will get fixed by some means. I would guess no one will believe the fix is perfect.

Don’t take away my way and you can raise the rest. Screw paying into SS. My dad got one check and my sister none.

 

[ricochet]

This wouldn't help at all. If you raise the cap then people will just transition over to working as "independent contractors" and "paying themselves w2 salaries" considerably under the SS limit (think $60,000-80,000 of ~$167,000 limit) and taking the rest as s-corp distributions. So lifting the earnings cap on SS will actually make the problem worse.

Is there an epidemic of people doing this today? I'm sure somewhere somebody is but why isn't it already rampant among people making more than say $100K? If you raised the cap to $1,000,000 and half of the people making that did what you say it would still generate a lot more money. It would have to be close to 90% doing it before it makes it worse wouldn't it?

 

[ricochet]

Its not much different than raising the cap, is it? You need the same amount of money, so whether you tax that money by raising the cap, or save it by not paying it out later, isn't it going to be roughly the same number of people impacted? It's not like the feds are investing it on anyone's behalf and reaping the time value of money lol.

I might be OK with some sort of means testing but the $100K level in your example is way too low. The simple example is somebody who makes $150K and wants to maintain that in retirement. They save enough for $100K and then expect $50K in social security. This person never hit the cap and now you propose we tell them sorry buddy suck it up? The same argument can be made for a person making $200K which is over the cap. In my opinion any sort of means testing discussion can't even start until the maximum social security benefit becomes a fairly small percentage of the annual income.

 

[CascadeClone]

I might be OK with some sort of means testing but the $100K level in your example is way too low. The simple example is somebody who makes $150K and wants to maintain that in retirement. They save enough for $100K and then expect $50K in social security. This person never hit the cap and now you propose we tell them sorry buddy suck it up? The same argument can be made for a person making $200K which is over the cap. In my opinion any sort of means testing discussion can't even start until the maximum social security benefit becomes a fairly small percentage of the annual income.

Shoulda saved enough for $150k if you wanted $150k... jk.

But seriously, SSI was just supposed to protect the elderly from poverty. Take you from 0 to 50k or 20k to 70k. It's not meant to take you from 100k to 150k. Anyway, that's my opinion, its worth exactly that.

 

[yowza]

Don’t take away my way and you can raise the rest. Screw paying into SS. My dad got one check and my sister none.

Agreed. I don't think it is right that someone can pay in for many years and pass before collecting a dime. Should get some sort of minimum payout to spouse or estate.

Hate that you can have two elderly folk living on the two SS checks and then one passes and the income suddenly drops as the survivor will not still be getting both payments.

 

[Stormin]

This wouldn't help at all. If you raise the cap then people will just transition over to working as "independent contractors" and "paying themselves w2 salaries" considerably under the SS limit (think $60,000-80,000 of ~$167,000 limit) and taking the rest as s-corp distributions. So lifting the earnings cap on SS will actually make the problem worse.

The problem with trying to change it so that businesses have to pay SS / FICA / SE on distributions is that the people who can afford to donate to politicians are the people impacted, so it's just not going to happen.

They will definitely lift the cap and tell everyone that it'll fix things, but it's not going to work.

The only ways for SS to stay solvent are
1.) pay out drastically less money (raise the age / lower the payouts per person / deny it to people)
2.) print more money out of nothing (and thus inflate the currency)
3.) get a lot more workers to pay in now (surge in immigration of people who are net payers into the system)
4.) have a massive increase in productivity of people working (new oil / tech boom? )

IMO Social Security is too far gone to fix, and they're going to full-scale replace it with something else like Universal Basic Income, which will be paid for initially by taxing robots / AI, but will mostly be paid via printing money and inflation. And then the USD will collapse over 20-30 years.

Wrong. Completely. You want to destroy and completely eliminate SS.

Explain to me how a CEO is now an independent contractor.

 

[Stormin]

Don’t take away my way and you can raise the rest. Screw paying into SS. My dad got one check and my sister none.

So because your father and sister died while receiving only one SS check between them the entire SS program should be eliminated?

Sounds like you are bitter. Have some issues you might want to resolve.