Everyone Is Lying To You About Social Security – Here Is The Truth

[midnight]

Blankfein’s comments are wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with the easiest to challenge: that Social Security wasn’t intended to support you “for a 30 year retirement after a 25 year career.” Perhaps a CEO such as Blankfein might expect a 30 year retirement and a 25 year career, but for most working Americans their career usually begins somewhere between the ages of 18 and 22, and eligibility for a reduced Social Security pension starts at 62. Basic math makes it obvious that most people work for at least 40 to 45 years before being eligible to draw Social Security. In regard to the second part of his comment, very few people enjoy a “30 year retirement.” The average male will collect Social Security for 13 years, the average female for 17 years.

Blankfein mentions raising the retirement age for Social Security. Thanks to the Social Security Amendments of 1983, this has already happened once. That law provided for gradually raising the age at which a person can collect full Social Security benefits from 65 to 67 for anyone born in 1938 or later. For example, someone who was born between 1943 and 1954 will not be eligible for full Social Security benefits until he or she reaches the age of 66.

You can be sure that the folks who think it is no big deal to ask everyone to work three to five years longer are all people who have worked in white-collar professions for most or all of their working lives. They simply do not understand the toll that daily physical labor, such as working in construction trades, driving delivery vehicles, doing custodial work, or any of a myriad of other activities takes on the human body. Many construction workers and truck drivers start working in those fields when they are 18 or 19. By the time they are in their 50′s they are often reaching a point where their bodies are starting to break down from the strain. Scott Quenneville, a 47 year old delivery driver, told the Wall Street Journal

I’ve already had two knee surgeries after going up and down these trucks all day. I don’t even know if I can make it to 57 and there’s no way I can make it to 65.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/07/25/everyone-is-lying-to-you-about-social-security-here-is-the-truth/

[rhett o rick]

1. My father worked hard all his life from his teens on. He worked overtime so he could

pat the maximum into SS. He had sever heart disease and needed a by-pass but he held off until he was 62. He was running a great risk of a massive heart attack with two arteries blocked 90% and two more blocked less. But he had to make it to 62. He had no health insurance. Shortly after his 62nd birthday he had a quadruple bypass. SS was very important to him.

[midnight]

9. That is good to know about working overtime to add more to S.S. I didn't realize this.

Glad your dad was able to stick it out and wait till his social security kicked in.... But this is another reason why health insurance should not be tied to employment..

[rhett o rick]

11. I absolutely agree. He took a great risk but got the by-pass before a heart attack.

If I remember correctly, you had to make a certain dollar amount per year to qualify for maximum benefits. He had to work OT to get to that dollar amount.

Of course I shouldnt tell this story without saying that my dad was very conservative and didnt believe in insurance. He accepted Social Security because he felt he earned it. But never had health insurance.

[delrem]

2. "Keep in mind as you read this that Blankfein is a Democrat"

I would no more believe Blankfein's claim to be a "Democrat",
that I would believe anything else the fucktard says.

The only thing to be taken from this is that people who promote themselves as being "Democrats", "leftists", "progressives", "Republicans", "rightists", "tea-party", are not always all that they seem, and sometimes anything like they seem or would have you believe.

[Hydra]

4. I'm with you

Blankfein isn't a democrat- he's a predatory 1%er who said he is "doing God's work" by stealing from us.

If he's in our party, it's because he stole it out from under us while we weren't looking.

[warrant46]

5. UNmasked Blankfein awesome

[Mojorabbit]

3. K and R nt

[ErikJ]

6. That's why disability social security is increasing

so rapidly. Lots of laborers with blown knees or backs in their 50's.

[Igel]

7. Wrong numbers.

Which is a mainstay at that site.

If you are an average American male and retire at age 65 today you are expected to live to age 84. That's 19 years from retiring at 65. Almost 50% longer than the addict site gives.

If you're female under the same conditions your average life expectancy is age 86. 21 years. The error's not as large.

IF you use age 62 as the retirement age, given today's figures you won't live to be as old but you'll live longer than 19 and 21 years, resp.

http://www.ssa.gov/planners/lifeexpectancy.htm

[DavidDvorkin]

8. Using average life expectancy at birth is a common error

in many arguments. It shows up frequently on DU.

[midnight]

10. I'm not concerned about who has a more accurate chart, but more concerned about those

people like Blankfein who don't need or contribute to S.S. to have such a hand in taking it away from those who do....

"It may be a little hard for people such as Blankfein to understand, because many of them collect the vast portion of their salary through dividends and interest, which means that they pay no Social Security (FICA) tax at all. Even those high income individuals who do pay FICA tax on their salary may not fully appreciate how much the average worker contributes, because as of 2013 the tax is only collected on the first $113,700 of income. So a $40,000 a year truck driver pays FICA tax on every dollar he earns, while a $225,000 a year corporate executive pays the tax on only about half of his or her income.

Another claim that has been made numerous times is that most people get more out of Social Security than what they paid in FICA taxes. This has historically been true. However, a 2010 report written for the Senate Committee on Aging paints a different picture."