Retirement Targets
- Thread starter yowza
- Start date
Good question. In 1940, the average life expectancy of a male aged 65 was 11.9 years. In 2001, the same expectancy was 15.8 years.
I assume the figures today are materially the same as "01.
I am not saying the attached table is 100% accurate. It is something I found. If true, it is less than I thought it would be.
I’m curious, first I pulled numbers somewhat out of the air but I proposed SS payments lower than the bare minimum SS payment now. Also with a reducing scale that eliminates any assistance at 6k/month household income, are you saying that most people who now save will have less than 6k/month in household income.
My wife would probably divorce me if that is what I made us live on in retirement. Two school teachers with 5 highest years average 50k would pull that off their pensions alone if they retired as soon as they could.
The people I’m proposing gets the highest payments are ones who were most likely minimum wage employees and are probably struggling to pay rent and just get by. So you are saying that someone making 10 bucks an hour is going to get crazy and start spending money wildly. How much are they saving now?
Flat tax system really hammers the poor and low income earners at a much higher rate of the take home pay then those at the top of the system.
The only way the flat tax would really be fair would be to exempt the first $25 to $30,000 and then make sure that all types of income are included as salary. You would also need to eliminate basically all tax deductions, to ensure that everyone is paying into the system but the poor.
Not to change the topic but I was listening to an investment podcast this morning on the way to work and heard something interesting. They were talking about how well GenX has done over the last few years in general. In the last 4 years, their net worth has basically doubled because of retirement savings and home values. Most either have their home paid off or have a super low interest rate.
I looked back at January 2020 compared to last month and our net worth is up 92%. My investments are pretty conservative.
I looked back at January 2020 compared to last month and our net worth is up 92%. My investments are pretty conservative.
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They still pay FICA, property taxes, state taxes, and taxes on gasoline, beer, and cigarettes, right?
The latest proposal I remember had checks that were mailed to everyone for the first 15000 (I can't remember the exact number but I thought it was in that area) that would be taxed. So then the money would be there for when they paid it. It would kill the need for income reporting.
Instead of social security, why wouldn't it work for a system similar to what different states have for public employees? (IPERS, MNPERA, MOSER, etc) Similar rules for retirement, add a few rules like exceptions for withdrawing earlier. Make it mandatory a certain percentage is contributed and give the employee the option to invest more. Employers contribute a specific percentage based on the minimum required employee percentage - not any additional an employee contributes.
I assume when people talk about flat tax, they are talking about income tax.
Teachers are not pulling in 6k a month from IPERS if they retire as soon as they hit their Rule of 88 on five years of $50K a year. They would be clearing less than 5K a month before taxes or less depending on the plan they decided to take. A couple like that SS is the difference between them having a pleasant retirement and scraping to get by.
All in my wife and I clear around 7.5K a month from our IPERS and SS combined, luckily for us we have our investments to add to that figure.
Yeah, any suggestion of privatizing would die a flaming death like in the past. The first problem is the current steam of income would not pay for the current receivers since they would go into a person's account. (Side fact, I just read that SS has paid out 7.4 trillion over the years and has collected 8.7 trillion over the same time period). Then you have the minimums and the disabled would not get anything and so on and so on.
Yep, bad head math on my part. 6k per month would require them to average 60k for those 5 years. Which now with the minimum being 62k, that would be a low number.
The "wealthy" are the only ones paying taxes in the first place. Seriously, our system is highly progressive already. 50% of taxpayers (nevermind those that don't work) pay 2% of the total. The top 1% pays almost half the total take. I guess reasonable minds can disagree on how progressive is enough, but it seems more than reasonable to me.
In 2021, the bottom half of taxpayers earned 10.4 percent of total AGI and paid 2.3 percent of all federal individual income taxes. The top 1 percent earned 26.3 percent of total AGI and paid 45.8 percent of all federal income taxes
I'd also argue that working 3 more years isn't making people "suffer", especially when they still have 40 years to save up enough to self-fund 3 years if they want to retire earlier... I am aiming to retire at 55, and am self-funding to do so, not lobbying Congress to cover me.
I am going to stop posting along these topic lines now, I am venturing near the cave and thats not the point of this thread.
