I’ve made this claim before, you did not pay for your social security benefits and you will very likely receive more in benefits than paid in taxes.
Understanding the truth about how Social Security works is important because false perceptions lead to bad policy and there is plenty of false information available and sadly believed.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Social Security isn’t a perpetual motion device – one that runs forever or creates “free energy” or “more income than taxes” (measured on a present value basis) – which would violate the first and second laws of thermodynamics (and finance).
Even with a discount rate of < 4%, given the historical rates of return on treasury debt instruments, the PV of taxes far exceeds the PV of benefits.
NO, this myth of more income than taxes is simply the result of mischaracterizing the pay as you go financing scheme coupled with the highly progressive benefit formula.
One more set of lies
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https://www.crfb.org/blogs/social-security-retirees-receive-far-more-they-paid#:~:text=The%20reality%20is%20that%20Social%20Security%20is,taxes%20finance%20the%20benefits%20of%20current%20retirees.
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Yes, certainly true for all generations prior to the Baby Boomers, and for all of the lowest earning Baby Boomer workers – due to Social Security’s hyper-progressive benefit formula, COLA, and ever increasing life expectancy.
But, not so when it comes to the majority of Baby Boomers where the majority of years paying FICA taxes were after the 1983 Amendments – that built up the trust reserves that are now being syphoned off, if you include both the employee and employer contributions (which are reductions in wages paid), with an appropriate adjustment for the time value of money.
The study suggests: A median-wage worker retiring in 2027 could receive about $730,000 in scheduled lifetime benefits while paying less than $200,000 in combined worker and employer taxes, CRFB said. That means benefits could be about 3.7 times total taxes paid and 7.4 times the worker’s direct contributions.
By the same rationale, you are receiving much more from your 401k plan than you and your employer contributed.
True, but only if you ignore the investment earnings/time value of money/inflation erosion.
More importantly, from Ida Mae Fuller to the last person born in 1945, as a group, all of those generations DID in fact receive benefits that far, far, far exceeded their contributions, even after adjusting for the time value of money. Who funded that? Baby Boomers.
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