Social Security is never enough, sell the motorcycle!

2013

Yesterday I was parking my car when a couple of fifty something’s pulled in the space next to me each on a gleaming large motorcycle. That’s a lot of chrome and a lot of money I thought to myself. By their looks and manner they were not wealthy executives on a Sunday jaunt. Tattoos and each 100 pounds or so overweight indicated a different way of life. Of course, who am I to judge, they indeed may have been affluent and fully prepared for life’s vicissitudes.

However, the odds are against that. More likely they are among the millions of Americans who live for today and tomorrow will take care of itself. Or, more accurately other Americans will take care of them tomorrow. Look at the statistics below. 40% of Americans would live in poverty without Social Security, for 65% Social Security is the majority of their cash income (not sure what not cash income is).

Continue reading and it gets worse. Social Security was born out of the depression when millions upon millions of Americans could not provide for themselves. The frame of reference was different from today. Even FDR envisioned Social Security as self-sustaining using no general tax dollars; a form of forced doing for oneself if you will with only the aged in 1935 receiving government money until 1965 when the program would be self-funded by payroll taxes alone.

What happened?

Hey, we all know there are exceptions; people who truly need assistance and there always will be. But look at the sentence I have placed in bold. How is that possible for so many people without their complicity during a working life without foresight or prudent choices; like riding around on $60,000 worth of motor cycle?

People living at or below the poverty level spend between 5 and 9 percent of their income on lottery tickets and overall lower-income people spend more than the affluent. While this may be understandable from a psychological perspective, it sure isn’t financially prudent. In fact, if you observe how people spend their money, what they can “afford,” as opposed what they cannot afford – – like saving for retirement, a $30 medical co-payment, or $25 for the pill – – or if you consider the spending and borrowing patterns of people who contributed to the Great Recession of 2008, it’s a pretty bleak picture. We seem incapable of distinguishing between needs, wants and desires.

The young today have pretty much given up on Social Security; it won’t be there for them anyway they say. However, their actions say you better pray Social Security is there because it will be most of your income in old age. Roosevelt thought he knew what kind of protection Americans wanted “that minimum necessity to keep a foothold,” I’m not so sure he was right.

We have become a society of “more” and today Americans are being taught to expect more, even demand it. Have Americans really become that helpless? I’ll leave the answer to you.

Pogo was right all along. “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

Fewer people said they planned to rely on Social Security [in the future]. The average Social Security retirement benefit in 2012 was $1,234 a month, or about $14,800 a year, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports.

The center also said that without Social Security benefits, more than 40 percent of Americans age 65 and up would fall below the federal poverty level. Currently for 65 percent of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security provides the majority of their cash income.

For 36 percent, Social Security provides more than 90 percent of their income and for 24 percent of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security is the sole source of retirement income.

via Online retirement survey appears way off from where everyday Americans live – KansasCity.com.

Roosevelt’s message to Congress January, 17, 1935

In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.

Radio address 1938

The Act does not offer anyone, either individually or collectively, an easy life–nor was it ever intended so to do. None of the sums of money paid out to individuals in assistance or in insurance will spell anything approaching abundance. But they will furnish that minimum necessity to keep a foothold; and that is the kind of protection Americans want.