r/politics • u/TkilledJ • Aug 27 '26
Possible Paywall Baby boomers are collecting 265% of what they paid into Social Security—and millennials are paying the price
https://fortune.com/2026/08/26/millennials-boomers-retirement-social-security/4.2k
u/luxuriousvoid Aug 27 '26
They want us fighting each other for the scraps instead of looking at them, the rich, to cough up the money they should have been paying into it all along. The system needs to be unrigged.
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u/tossit97531 Aug 27 '26
Seriously. Inflammatory and distracting. Put it on the list of things our reps incessantly screw up. Tax the rich to hell and back (or just to hell, they can stay there)
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u/REpassword Aug 27 '26
Tax them they way it was in the 60’s and 70’s, something like top marginal was 90%
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u/Thusgirl Kansas Aug 27 '26
Also REMOVE the social security tax cap. Idc if you pay more than you'll ever receive SO AM I with less.
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u/HyenaAdditional3913 Aug 28 '26
Whenever I have a conversation with my extremely conservative parents about taxation I say we should just go back to the rates under the Reagan administration(he's a god in their eyes). Which would more than double the marginal rates for the wealthy. They never know how to respond.
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u/Beautiful_Nobody_344 Aug 27 '26
The biggest argument poor Republicans have against this is "Why should they pay into it if they'll never use it". They are fundamentally corrupt and I firmly believe in reeducation efforts.
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u/HybridPS2 Aug 27 '26
they are literally unable to imagine a scenario outside of their own lived experience
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u/NamasteMotherfucker Aug 27 '26
Lack of empathy is the defining characteristic of conservatives.
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u/GreasyPeter Aug 28 '26
They often have empathy, they just can't and won't extend it past the people they personally know. There's a huge distrust of strangers in conservative communities in some ways. I guess when you're convinced that the only thing standing between anarchy and peace on earth is authority figures and laws, you tend to be pessimistic. They fail to realize that if people were as bad as they think, we wouldn't have civilization in the first place. People don't murder because it's bad and they have a conscious (usually) not because the law tells them to not do it.
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u/NamasteMotherfucker Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
If you have to know (and probably share a worldview with!) someone to feel "empathy" for them, I think it's arguably not empathy, but sympathy. You're able to understand how you would feel, but that's not actually stepping outside of yourself and experiencing something from someone else's point of view.
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u/chaostheories36 Aug 27 '26
They don’t, won’t, or can’t read so they don’t even experience the peripheral life experience of someone else through literature.
They don’t, won’t, or can’t travel beyond their state, so they don’t know anyone who lives differently, or lives elsewhere.
They are so heavily bubbled that they think, somehow, everyone American has the same down trodden and abused life they are living, and somehow all the Mexicans are living in huge mansions. And also the billionaires. But how could they possibly ever be mad at the billionaires?!
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u/SLywNy Aug 27 '26
Yeah I hate how even some lefty bite the bait on this issue. Of course old people "paid less than they get now" it's called inflation.
This kind of discourse is purposely made by the people who hate social security in its entirety.
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u/Round-Asparagus5337 Aug 28 '26
It takes inflation i to account.
HOWEVER, it doesn't take into account the money growing over time as if it was invested instead of just inflation, and it only counts the people collecting it, not every boomer who paid in (a bunch of people die earlier and therefore collect less than they put in).
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u/Buena_de_peepee Aug 27 '26
As long as Republicans keep brainwashing their stupid constituencies and keeping them stupid, that will never happen.
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u/VHS_Ronin Aug 27 '26
It's also bullshit how many TRILLIONS of dollars have been siphoned away from social security to fund the military industrial complex since the 1980s. The fund is only low on funds because they've been purposely mishandled for decades.
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u/PlsSuckMyToes Aug 27 '26
Remove the cap
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Aug 27 '26
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u/curien Aug 27 '26
It would be a good start, but not a complete solution: it's estimated to resolve about 50-65% of the shortfall.
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u/Isgrimnur Texas Aug 27 '26
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
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u/curien Aug 27 '26
Hence "it would be a good start". A lot of people are under the impression that it's a complete solution, which is just misinformation.
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u/rich1051414 Aug 27 '26
Maybe we should let them think that until it's implemented, THEN push the rest of the message.
Voters will say stairs are insurmountable if you cannot reach the top in a single step.81
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u/Tipsy-Canoe Aug 27 '26
I’ve noticed that discounting a solution completely if it’s not a complete solution is a part of the conservative mindset.
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u/Colossus-of-Roads Australia Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
The fact that no single technology can replace our existing energy needs was used as a reason not to address climate change for a long time. It still is, but it used to be, too.
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u/kung-fu_hippy Aug 28 '26
There aren’t many problems in life where a relatively simple action will solve over 50% of the issue. I can’t think of any others in government policy.
No simple policy change would successfully house 50% of the homeless population, or reduce 50% of poverty, or eliminate 50% of the damage done from fossil fuels.
I’m willing to call something that solves over 50% of an issue in one fell swoop something stronger than “a good start”. 10% is “good start” territory.
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u/Unfair_Elderberry118 Aug 27 '26
A bigger share paid by corporations is another good push but it would be useless without raising the cutoff point in a meaningful way.
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u/I_am_BrokenCog California Aug 27 '26
lol.
have you seen American voting??
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u/MudLOA California Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Just for those who didn’t know. In one state recently, the voters just voted to denied their own state to raise the minimum wage. Just unbelievable.
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u/-jp- Aug 27 '26
I can beat that. Recently Nebraskans voted to raise the minimum wage, but because FUCKING REPUBLICANS run the state, the government told us to get fucked. Then, when Lincoln and Omaha voted to increase the LOCAL minimum wage, the party of "small government" sued them.
Fuck. I hate the scum-sucking hypocritical GOP more than words could ever do justice.
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u/IamDDT Colorado Aug 27 '26
IIRC, The Republicans in Iowa did the same thing with Johnson county (home of the U of I, and the bluest county in the state). Johnson county tried to have higher minimum wage, and the Republicans in the state government stopped it. Not trying to compare misery, just saying that this seems to be their playbook entirely.
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u/-jp- Aug 27 '26
Oh, no worries, I know you're not trying to one-up me or anything. We're all in this together. 👍
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u/IamDDT Colorado Aug 27 '26
I just left Iowa this year. Colorado is better in so many ways, but I still kinda miss Iowa. It stinks that it is in the hands of such bad people. Hopefully Rob Sand and Turek can turn it around!
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u/Sure-Ad417 Aug 27 '26
Hey, we aren’t 50th in education for nothing! OK is always proud to vote itself into even worse situations.
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Aug 27 '26
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u/WHOS-YSO Aug 27 '26
Exactly, I don’t know why people get so offended at this suggestion. Billionaires have more money than they could ever use, even if they tried to use it all I doubt they could. Just take it. They only want you to think they’ll miss it.
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u/SdBolts4 California Aug 27 '26
They also obtained it by exploiting public services: roads, the USPS, police, military, etc. only fair they support the elderly
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u/msuvagabond Aug 27 '26
Pretty sure I've read that removing the cap on taxes (but not benefits) would reduce up to 90% of the 75 year shortfall and keep it solvent for at least 35 more years.
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u/Ruminant Aug 27 '26
According to the estimates based on the 2025 trustees report, the change you describe would reduce the 75-year shortfall by 67% and delay emptying the trust fund until 2059.
Though I've also read that the 2026 trustees report shows a larger longer running deficit than the 2025 report. If true, then the numbers above may also be too optimistic.
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u/Nicklename Aug 27 '26
The "cap" on benefits only exists because of the cap on contributions. It's a math trap.
And the upper middle class (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/upper-middle-class-income-us-what-it-takes/) is the one that's going to push back because they're the ones that get the double whammy... more taxes, no increase in benefit, not rich enough to feel money is inconsequential, but rich enough to feel like they they've paid more than their share and aren't getting anything in return.
A platform of "eat the billionaires" has widespread appeal. A platform of "mid to late career high school principals in NY and Lieutenants in the LAPD should pay more taxes for no added benefit", not so much.
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u/-MtnsAreCalling- Aug 27 '26
It would have been a complete solution if we’d done it earlier, which is probably why so many people think it still would be.
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u/ChristopherMarv Aug 27 '26
Resolving 50 to 65 percent of the shortfall is a compelling reason for implementation.
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u/Valuable_Sea_4709 Aug 27 '26
Solving 1/2 to 2/3 of a problem is certainly better than doing nothing.
Here's how you make up the rest, count capital gains income over $100,000/y as normal income, and tax it accordingly along with the associated Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security taxes that would be owed on typical income.
That would effectively mean retirees living on that income wouldn't have to pay any extra, but those with exorbitant gains would have to pay their fair share.
I am sick and tired of those with the most money paying the lowest proportional taxes.
My total effective tax rate on my income is over 37%, including all federal and state income taxes, rising to almost 48% when you factor in the 9-11% sales tax I have to pay on most purchases in my home state/city.
Why the hell is capital gains tax only 15% and not applicable to any of the social safety net programs?
We're also a good two decades overdue for the millions of audits on the wealthy that would be required to prevent situations like Donald Trump, who reportedly paid literally nothing in federal taxes for years, then paid only $750/y when his own lawyers reportedly knew the public would be upset.
Remove the cap AND MAKE THE WEALTHY PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE. Do that and Social Security could finally start reinvesting an excess instead of continually draining it's investment accounts.
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u/Biokabe Washington Aug 27 '26
Exactly.
There are reasons to want a separate capital gains tax rate from regular income (I'm not terribly sympathetic to those reasons, but I'll acknowledge it as an argument that people will make). But there shouldn't be such a huge tax advantage to earning your money by letting other people do the hard work for you.
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u/MrPBoy Aug 27 '26
Ok. How about remove the cap and double the amount currently currently exempt over the cap. This is only hard because of the way money works in politics.
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u/zombawombacomba Aug 27 '26
Easy and makes wealthy “lose” more of their money. Definitely won’t happen.
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u/Goated-Rizzler Aug 27 '26
Al Gore is probably fuming somewhere right now. If things went his way, Social Security and Medicare might still have surpluses right now.
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u/brokesciencenerd Aug 27 '26
The climate would be in better shape too. Maybe all those people in Nepal would still be alive 🤷♀️ butterfly effect
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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom Aug 27 '26
Iraq would be a bit less blown up too. Never mind everywhere the US has attacked since.
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u/Aaod Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Al Gore is probably fuming somewhere right now. If things went his way, Social Security and Medicare might still have surpluses right now.
Him and Ross Perot are the two most obvious they were right in hindsight people I can think of over my lifetime. Imagine a world without NAFTA and without China joining the WTO and no 2008 housing crash.
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u/CosmogyralSnail Aug 27 '26
I'm just hoping alternate universe me is living a good life.
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u/Goated-Rizzler Aug 27 '26
Our alternate universe selves are probably riding around on Segways enjoying universal healthcare and free college tuition.
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u/MiddleAgedSponger Aug 27 '26
That, plus the headline is extremely disingenuous. It is 133% if you include the employer contribution. Get rid of the cap and you could probably slowly lower the rate or up the benefits over the long run.
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u/tle4f Aug 27 '26
As long as they can keep us fighting over the crumbs the Epstein Class wins every time.
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u/Icy_Reward727 Aug 27 '26
It's 100% a divide and conquer tactic. I'm sick of this shit. Pitting us gender against gender, straight against LGBTQ, religious against secular, race against race, generation against generation. LITERALLY ANYTHING THEY CAN EXPLOIT. DON'T let them!
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u/FormerUsenetUser Aug 27 '26
People in red states who find life unaffordable, against people in blue states who find life unaffordable.
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u/ibelieveindogs Aug 27 '26
What especially disingenuous is if they are not looking at inflation-adjusted dollars. Boomers started working in the mid 1960s. Any investments made then could be worth 300x the initial investment. So getting back 1.33 times that is actually losing money. This is just inciting intergenerational conflict.
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u/Jarfol Aug 27 '26
Yes. SS itself is inflation adjusted as it should be. It would be near worthless if it wasn't. So everyone that pays into it always gets more back.
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u/ABCosmos Aug 27 '26
If anyone still doesn't understand this, please let me hold your money.. ill give you 1.4x returns over 60 years.
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u/Hilldawg4president Aug 27 '26
That sounds even worse, 30% returns over a lifetime are abysmal
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u/justcasty Massachusetts Aug 27 '26
NASDAQ has nearly done that in the past year
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u/BigBadPanda Aug 27 '26
Removing the cap results in Millennials paying even more of the Boomer’s tab. Tax the ultra wealthy, not W2 wage earners
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u/ClaymoreMine Aug 27 '26
Stop taxing w2s more. Start taxing the way the wealthy make money.
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u/burnerboo Aug 27 '26
Indeed. Apply a 2% tax on capital gains from stock sales. That would fund it forever.
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u/Magikarpical Aug 27 '26
capital gains should be taxed at normal income levels like they were in the 70s
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u/TheWatersOfMars Aug 27 '26
Plus, that'd help incentivize people to use their money in healthier ways, like starting their own business or investing in something around town or spending it instead of hoarding the wealth.
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u/lowlatitude Aug 27 '26
Make capital gains a contributor with no cap, especially if it's the person's dominant income source.
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u/super_bigly Aug 27 '26
I’ve said this every time someone suggests removing the cap…all you’re doing is taxing the well off professional salary class and doing nothing about the ultra wealthy who have the vast majority of their money in appreciating assets. You’re just taxing income more and not wealth.
You know what I’ll do as a self employed person if the salary cap goes up and it financially makes sense? I’ll re-organize as an S-corp, pay myself out in mostly business “distributions” and minimize my W2 salary to myself to as low as possible.
Nobody wants to go after the big fish who are the people who have money than all of us will ever see many lifetimes over. Stop fighting for scraps and actually band together to tax wealth.
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u/OBDreams Aug 27 '26
SS is easily fixed by raise the cap on taxable income. The only issue is the manufactured problem created by the republicans. The republicans that want SS to end.
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u/_CrackBabyJesus_ Aug 27 '26
Republicans want SS to be privatized so they and their donors can skim more money off of it
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u/meatball77 Aug 27 '26
And don't care a bit that the result would be seniors on the street because they won't be around to deal with it
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u/General_Mars Aug 27 '26
And we already have that because the SS income is way too low for what seniors actually need to retire. That was the entire point, Social Security allows people to retire and get older people out of the job market and taken care of. They can’t afford rent/mortgages, groceries, utilities, and property taxes on houses they’ve owned for decades.
Not SS and 401k and Roth IRA and everything else. Those are supposed to be extras. Not necessities.
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u/superxpro12 Aug 27 '26
401k's only exist because Republicans successfully managed to eliminate the social safety net and privatize it.
And so we spend 40 years parking 10-20% of our income into these untouchable savings accounts so fund managers can redistribute them and make obscene fees off it.
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u/TM761152 Aug 27 '26
And they in turn will get a kick back. Why even have a middle-man, trump has shown you don't need any, you can just rob the US taxpayers yourself!
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u/Playful-Goat3779 Aug 27 '26
The cap, like minimum wage, was implemented decades ago based on how the economy functioned at the time, and it was expected that it would be reevaluated over the years by the future government. Our government no longer functions the way it was designed to because there's a majority of bad actors
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u/Bohbo Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Most people would be better off if non retirement capital gains were taxed more appropriately.
Lets say any capital gains over 100k a year get taxed as full income with a once every 5 year 2 million dollar exemption or something for small business sale situations.
That tax goes directly to social security funding or increases. That way we can buffer against stock market speculation risk which already invades 401ks. That seems to be a reasonable compromise on social stability/good and capitalism enthusiasts.
And also, yes remove the cap 100%. This is in addition to that.
edit: typo and clarity
edit2: I would love to see rental income from landlords going to first time homebuyer programs and SS as well. Make it less attractive to RENT OUT and easier to BUY.
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u/PhucYiu Aug 27 '26
Republicans love the SS that can be used to oppress us and hate the SS meant to help provide for us.
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u/SaaSyGirl Massachusetts Aug 27 '26
And Republicans need to keep their hands out of the SSA cookie jar to fund their bullshit
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u/Cobra-Lalalalalalala Aug 27 '26
Americans retiring this decade are on track to collect, in the form of entitlements, about 133% of everything they and their employers paid in taxes, measured in present-value dollars. Strip out the employer match, and the return nearly doubles: Roughly 265% of what workers put in themselves.
That’s a pretty big matzo ball hanging out there. You can’t exclude the employer contribution to inflate the numbers. That’s part of your pay, you’re just getting it later.
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u/shrunkenhead041 Aug 27 '26
Why would they strip out the employer match as part of the calculation? That is highly disingenuous. Some (a lot) reporters need to be fired for gross incompetence.
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u/koreqwzfp Aug 27 '26
Because they’re not reporters they’re propagandists
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u/LibertyOrDeath-2021 Aug 27 '26
Because this is from Fortune, not the poor peoples journal. Its also a bit misleading to use inflation rates. If this was market returns it would be much less than they put in. I fully understand why they use it but taking my money with a promise to pay me in the future for a retirement should be based on market returns not basic inflation.
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u/SomethingIWontRegret Aug 28 '26
It's supposed to be a guaranteed payment. If the market goes down, it's still guaranteed.
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u/AceMcVeer Aug 27 '26
The whole thing is disingenuous. Of course you're going to collect more than you pay in. You could start paying in when you're in your teens and collect until you're 100. A dollar 80 years ago is worth $13 today.
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u/hcbaron Aug 27 '26
That's why they calculate present value dollars. That takes inflation into account.
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u/WideHuckleberry1 Aug 27 '26
Because a 33% gain is a lot more eye-catching than a 165% gain, and they wanted to attract attention and stir the generation wars shouting match.
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u/flat6NA Aug 27 '26
As somebody who was “the employer” it’s especially disingenuous.
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u/dartdoug Aug 28 '26
Yup. If you are self employed you are paying both the employee and the employer amounts. Same for a small business owner.
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u/HermanGulch Aug 27 '26
That seems like it's deliberately inflammatory. For what it's worth, he also failed to mention that baby boomers have had their benefits cut three ways: FRA raised to 67, increased payroll taxes, and taxing benefits over a threshold that's not indexed to inflation.
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u/Mister__Mediocre Aug 27 '26
I think it’s also misleading to use present value dollars since that uses inflation numbers and practically every investment vehicle you could have chosen beats inflation by a lot. Like if you had put the money in stocks, you’d have like an order of magnitude more money that what you’re getting out here.
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u/boulderbuford Aug 27 '26
This article is a shit analysis:
- The claim that baby boomers are collecting 265% of what they contributed appears to be unsupported by the data in the very same report.
- Given an average a life expectancy of 82-85, then the typical baby boomer (that's still alive) doesn't start to get benefits that outpace contributions until they hit about 83-84.
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u/Square-Weight4148 Aug 27 '26
Its the hoarders that are the problem. Not Boomers, not Millenials but those who hoard wealth and dont pay at the same rate as the rest of us. Open your damn eyes.
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u/heleuma Aug 27 '26
I think we should recognize that nobody is just going to cut a check to the IRS and say "I think you undercharged me". 50% of our population doesn't vote, a a large number who do, don't put much thought into it. We really need to start voting and paying attention to who we're putting in office, not just who's getting the most money from corporate interests for ad spend. Unless the laws change to reflect the needs of the working class, you might as well be shouting "hoarders!" at the clouds.
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u/rayword45 Aug 27 '26
Media oligarchs really want people to blame their woes and anxieties on entire groups of millions of other people based on incredibly stupid criteria like which 15-year timespan they were born in, or what genitalia they have, or how long ago their ancestors moved onto this landmass, et cetera et cetera. All so that people DON'T point the blame at the very, very obvious group of people who actually deserve to be held accountable. Y'know, the ones who make all these political decisions, control your paycheck, and are destroying the planet to further line their pockets.
And the masses just eat it up hook, line and sinker.
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u/kickroot New Jersey Aug 27 '26
If only a generation existed in between Boomers and Millennials that may play some part in this.
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u/Vivid_Dot2869 Aug 27 '26
Yup with the media it's always Baby Boomers vs Millennials or Gen Z.
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u/hasordealsw1thclams Aug 27 '26
I mean think of what generation the editors and people in power at these outlets probably are during most of the generation war bullshit. It’s the one that always escapes it.
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u/ohlookahipster Aug 27 '26
Gen X mastered the art of getting away with diabolical shit. It’s quite impressive how blameless they’ve been.
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u/emerald6_Shiitake Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
To be fair, Gen X was a little smaller than the Boomer generation so it's understandable that people don't blame them nearly as much as Boomers who now dominate US politics). Furthermore, a reason why Millennials are so talked about is because they are the largest demographic in the US now. If you look at a population pyramid of the US, as of 2026 the largest age bracket is 35-39. At the same time you'll notice that the 60-79 group is a little thiccer than 80+, and not just because 80+ year olds are supposed to die of age; or that because of an economic crisis caused in no small part by a powerfully idiotic Boomer the US birth rate shrank to where there are fewer children than there are young/middle age adults. Rather than invest in the few children we do have or ensure that the current adults can live healthy comfortable lives...well we are back to the topic of OP's article: the US working-age adults are funding current retirements but will not get the same benefits in the future through both demographics (way more old than young people) and financial inefficiency (ie not uncapping SS payroll taxes or taxing corps not based on number of employees)
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u/IgnoreThisName72 Aug 27 '26
I'm GenX, and it has been fucking baffling watching my cohort vote with boomers against the interest of every other demographic. There is 0 chance that Millenials and younger will support our retirement like we did the boomers.
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u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
If my city is anything to go by, there is no shortage of near sociopathic Gen Xer fully displaying toxic capitalism. Usually a guy who made big bucks in finance or health care, pivots to a "we should open a bar" type "cool" business they dreamed about, and completely runs it into the ground on poor decisions, no experience, with plenty of accusations from staff members against them.
EDIT: Shout out to the two surgeons in my area who opened a bar-cade, insisted the bar-cade in a college town only served farm to table needlessly expensive food, invited their staff over to one of their houses seemingly just to show off their classic car collections under the guise of a cook out, were closed half the time because they were more focused on showing off to their doctor buddies with private parties, and then closed within two years.
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u/Oodlydoodley Aug 27 '26
I really don't think that the actions of two people exemplifies an entire generation.
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u/hyperedge Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Gen X is one of the smallest generations that's why they don't get mentioned a lot. Their impact is nothing compared to the Baby Boomer generation or even Millennials.
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u/silentpopes Aug 27 '26
It’s almost as if they were forgotten
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u/meatball77 Aug 27 '26
Same with how our parents raised us. Kick us out of the house in the morning and be back before the lights come on. If you need a drink here's the garden hose full of lead flavored water.
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u/Sweet_Concept2211 Aug 27 '26
I wonder how many artificial demographic divisions we can create to further Balkanize American society and keep the poors fighting each other over scraps while oligarchs from every generation hoover up the bulk of everything?
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u/guttanzer Aug 27 '26
No worries. In 10 years the powers that want to divide us will be getting Gen Alpha to blame the Millennials and Gen x’rs for everything. It’s just how it works.
When I was young we blamed, “the man” for everything. People over 30 were not to be trusted.
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u/Redtex Aug 27 '26
Ah, The next attempt to shift blame from billionaires and corporations to the common people. I was wondering how they would do that
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u/Rivent Aug 27 '26
Yeah. The really cool thing is we (Millenials) have been told this would happen since we were kids, and no one did anything to correct the problem.
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u/ChefCurryYumYum Aug 27 '26
What a weird fucking way to frame it. They are living longer so they are collecting more, not to mention inflation.
But it's the cap on contributions that allow the richest Americans to not pay into the system relative to their incomes. Not to mention all the other ways in which the tax burden has been shifted to the working person over the last 50 years.
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u/livefreeordont Delaware Aug 27 '26
Inflation was accounted for, they used today’s dollars. What they did do however, is exclude employer contribution which is ridiculous
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u/Vignum Foreign Aug 27 '26
Yeah, make the masses fight each other instead of demanding that the pedo and murderers billonaires pay taxes and face justice.
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u/nernst79 Aug 27 '26
The problem shouldn't be what they're receiving from SS. This is exactly what SS is supposed to be. The problem is that, in order for SS to continue to work as intended for any generation after Baby Boomers, the monetary cap for high earners needs to be increased to a much higher limit than the current 170K or so that it is.
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u/Lynda73 Aug 28 '26
Gen X barely makes a mention. It’s set to run out right when I reach retirement age. Lucky me. Remove the cap.
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u/Zealousideal-Sea4830 Aug 28 '26
They want us to get mad and demand an end to Social Security. Literally because they stole all the money and replaced it with worthless Treasury Bills and now they cant afford it. So the govt wants some kind of popular support to cancel the program everyone's grandma depends on to pay the bills. Bastards.
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u/Simpicity Aug 27 '26
What stupid premise.
"The nonpartisan budget watchdog, revisiting one of its favorite subjects, found that Americans retiring this decade are on track to collect, in the form of entitlements, about 133% of everything they and their employers paid in taxes, measured in present-value dollars. Strip out the employer match, and the return nearly doubles: Roughly 265% of what workers put in themselves."
- First, employer matched dollars ARE REAL DOLLARS. That's money the employer is paying to you, but putting into your account for you. So, the 265% is just nonsense. 133% is the number that should be looked at.
- What do you call an investment account that you put some amount of dollars into and pull a larger amount of dollars out of when you hit 65? Oh wait.... That's how investment works? 133 percent is a terrible investment return.
The article wants you to think that retirement funds are where they lock up your money in a vault and then return it to you later. Moronic.
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u/hacksoncode Aug 27 '26
The big lie is that it's an investment or savings account at all. It's been a pay-as-you-go senior welfare program since about a year after it was created.
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u/steemSTEM Aug 27 '26
Finally someone talking sense. The fact that this trash article is being voted up is crazy.
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u/jkhabe Aug 27 '26
This is a bullshit propaganda hit piece done for the purpose of fomenting adverse discourse between groups of people, much in the same way as they get the people making $25 and hour hating people making $7.25 per hour. This articles stating, "The reality is that Social Security is not a savings program where workers’ payroll tax contributions are saved in an account and used to pay their benefits" is bullshit. The money paid into SS was for a Social Security program, do they think it was so the govt can buy weapons to bomb little kids in Tehran?
I've been collecting SS since the end of 2025. The math used in the article is fuzzy math at best and, is misleading. I just looked at my SS account and here are the facts:
note: I do no take into account future COLAs or interest past or present that could have been earned on the FICA taxes paid into SS.
- Almost $315,000 was paid into SS by myself AND my employer. The article in part wants to focus on just what we paid in, not the employers portion.
- Based on what I personally paid, at 265% I could collect my monthly annuity for 215 months or 18 years. Thats probably right at the life expectancy for a male in the US.
- Based on what my and my employers contributions were paid in, at 265% I could collect my monthly annuity for 437 months or 36 years. I seriously don't think I'm making it to age 99...
- Every month, Fed and state taxes are deducted from my SS check so, I'm paying taxes on taxes already paid. Nice! /S
They can solve the problem if they wanted, raise the CAP. If someone makes $100 Million per year, they hit the cap and stop paying at 4:09PM in January 1st! What time do you think Musk, Bezos of Zuckerberg would stop paying (not taking into account for tax games)? You know what? Fuck off, give me my $315,000 back and I'll manage it myself and, do better.
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u/burlap_underground Aug 27 '26
This is paywalled, but I'd love to see an excerpt because I get a whiff of op from this.
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u/TkilledJ Aug 27 '26
The sub wouldn't let me post an identical article that isn't paywalled. https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/baby-boomers-collecting-265-paid-160259047.html?guccounter=1
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u/giraloco Aug 27 '26
Very confusing and biased article. Isn't the graph showing that nominal dollars plus interest cover benefits until age 85? SS is an insurance program that also covers disability. It's not a savings account. People have been saying it will run out of money for the last 40 years. I bet there is an article by a baby boomer blaming the previous generations. What's the alternative? Old people begging in the streets?
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u/PlsNoNotThat Aug 27 '26
For those that didn’t study American history closely, old people starving to death and begging in the street at such high rates were why SS programs were started.
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u/Girls4super Aug 27 '26
And while it wasn’t intended as a savings program, it very much is treated as one with the disappearance of pensions and other retirement options that were once supplied by the company you worked for
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u/ChicagoThrowaway422 Aug 27 '26
I hate the title of this. They should be pulling out more than they paid in. That's how it works. And the current workers have always paid for the retired ones. We should also pull out 265% of what we put in because inflation will always happen.
Boomers aren't the problem here, and neither is Social Security. The problem is that they're trying to take this benefit away from us before we get to draw from it. That's the scam.
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u/capprieto Aug 27 '26
Nothing like the mainstream corporate media to keep sowing division. Feed the rage, keep the same sorry people in power, make no progress. Lather rinse repeat.
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u/crochetawayhpff Illinois Aug 28 '26
Focus on the billionaire class not generational warfare. Billionaires are the real problem
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u/No-Refrigerator5478 Aug 27 '26
Would be more meaningful and useful if you compared various birth decades and how much they paid in (adjusted for inflation) and how much they got out (adjusted for inflation)
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u/Aurelar Aug 27 '26
This is rage bait made to divide us and made to make us want to cut social security. Fuck this article.
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u/jackstraw97 New York Aug 27 '26
This is a propaganda piece to get young people to oppose social security.
You don’t “pay in” to social security. It has always been that current workers subsidize current retirees. That’s the point of the program.
It’s not an investment account.
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u/network_dude Aug 27 '26
Rich people pay other rich people to tell poor people to blame other poor people.
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u/trytobedecenthumans Aug 28 '26
This is so dumb. Right, the enemy is boomers? NO. The enemy is the billionaires and corporations that do not pay their fair share of taxes. Gawd.
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u/ReasonablyConfused Aug 28 '26
This is not an old people taking too much problem. This is a rich people not being taxed enough problem.
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u/AdCharacter8136 Aug 27 '26
265%? Well, after earning compound interest for 40+ years, I would hope so.
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u/Original_Sedawk Aug 27 '26
Yeah, I don't think people realize how bad that actually is. Over 40 years that is a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of less than 3.5%
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u/PuddinHead742 Aug 27 '26
Fuck off. If Billionaires and millionaires were paying in to social security with no cap we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
And if a couple trillion dollars weren’t used to bankroll the War on Terror and Iraq that SOME PEOPLE don’t want to pay back was paid back to the social security fund. Well. Yeah. Tell me again why the pentagon has failed a brazillion audits in a row?
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u/Diablo689er Aug 27 '26
It’s as measured in present dollars without any growth.
Don’t ask what they would have gotten if their money was auto invested into an index fund…..
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u/csjpsoft Aug 27 '26
Fortune magazine's framing of this issue is deceptive. It reaches the 265% figure by pretending the the workers got the employer match as a gift. Really? Did big corporations decide to match the FICA payments of random people out of kindness?
No, they only matched the FICA payments of their employees. It was part of the compensation that those employees earned. In Human-Resource-speak, it was deferred compensation.
So, that 265% is really 133%. Well, 133 is still a big number, right? No. 100% would mean that the retirees get back exactly what they contributed. 133% is a three digit number, but it just means that the retirees get back $133 for every $100 they paid.
That's still a profit, right? Yes. It is a profit on the order of earning 1% interest on your payment each year for 40 years.
(Please note that I said "on the order of". That means I haven't done the actual calculation, with estimates of FICA payments over a 40 year career and internal rate of return calculations. So save yourself the trouble of telling me that it's actually 1.25% or 0.75% or whatever. If, however, you calculate that it's actually 10%, I'd love to hear about it.)
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u/OneUltra Aug 27 '26
“In present day dollars”. Pretty big caveat. F you Fortune for obvious rage baiting.
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u/btinc Aug 27 '26
What a bullshit article, designed to pit generations against each other. Why shouldn't you get more than you paid into it back, just like any investment?
The issue isn't that millennials are paying the price, it's that millionaires and billionaires are not.
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u/CharlieOnTheMTA I voted Aug 27 '26
Boomer here. I worked until I was 71, then retired a few years ago. I will NEVER see the kind of returns this article is predicting. The article reads like an argument to eliminate SS.
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u/gtpc2020 Aug 27 '26
Isn't that just normal with compounding interest? SS should grow. The boomers started working for $5,600/year annually (median in 1960). 13% of that is $728 the first year. Of course they have to get more than that to retire today. $728, even 5x that is nothing for a year's income. Money should more than double over 40 years with any hope to keep up with buying power.
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u/Hollygrl Aug 27 '26
Can’t believe I had to scroll down this far for the (I guess not so obvious) answer. $265% is only around 4% annually on the money you’ve handed over over forty five years. Actually a shitty deal. The government should be required to invest it better.
All these “I can’t believe bOoMeRs are getting 265%”need to go back to junior high and pay attention this time.
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u/analyticaljoe Aug 27 '26
Millenials should also get Social Security.
Stop trying to create generational conflict. Instead get focused on the core issue that: In the wealthiest nation in the world, seniors should have a reasonable life without working.
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u/Alarming-Koala-3524 Aug 27 '26
Is it really the fault of the Boomers? Somehow I get the feeling when Social Security was enacted, nobody foresaw medical industry lobbyists being so successful in jacking up the price of health care.
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u/jleonardbc Aug 27 '26
In theory we should all be able to collect that much, due to investment interest accruing through decades.
The only reason we can't is mismanagement of the funds.
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u/Piscator629 Michigan Aug 28 '26
Just because congress mismanaged the funds paid is zero percent the fault of citizens getting their just due. WE PAID FOR IT!
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u/_bufflehead Aug 27 '26
The author, Nick Lichtenberg, is unimaginative and effete, and uses AI to produce his columns, which are shit.
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u/Athleticsbaby Aug 27 '26
None of that surplus is being paid for by some accumulated boomer nest egg. It’s paid for by payroll taxes taken from paychecks of the working-age population today—a population increasingly made up of millennials moving into their prime earning years, alongside Gen X.
At least they remembered we exist. Whatever.
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u/DynamicDK Aug 28 '26
This is a stupid article and a stupid title. It is trying to pit the poor against the poor. Social security would have no problem at all if there wasn't a cap on income that is taxed for it. Tax the rich.
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u/AuntRhubarb Aug 28 '26
Fuck this pitting generations against each other while the billionaires rape us. How stupid do we have to be to fall for this bullshit about how there's not enough SS to go around, while trillions fly out the door to banks, bombs, corporate welfare and thieves. Fuck this article and fuck Fortune.
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u/MatthewMarcum Aug 27 '26
That’s literally how the program works… for Reddit being so in favor of social safety nets they seem very upset that a social safety unit is working as intended…
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u/keepgoing66 Aug 27 '26
In other words, baby boomers have had decades of horrible returns on their Social Security investment. Fixed it for you.
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u/nucumber Aug 27 '26
Much more was paid out by boomers to the greatest generation than they put in
Social Security has always been something of a ponzi scheme.
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u/2ndBrreakfast Aug 27 '26
This is propaganda designed to create hatred between generations. Every younger generation pays for the Social Security income of the older generation. That's how it's supposed to work. This is normal.
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u/Capercaillie Aug 27 '26
Blaming the Boomers, but completely ignoring what they would’ve earned on their money had they invested it rather than paid it into Social Security. It’s always great to divide people when the simple answer is to raise the cap.
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u/NotOK1955 Aug 27 '26
I put money in.
Uncle Sam squandered it away.
I just want what I’m due….no more, no less.
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u/Surprise_Special Aug 27 '26
How about stop voting for presidents and politicians who want to spend trillions on unnecessary wars? 🙄 If we did we could solve the Medicare and Social Security deficits.
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u/Snapes_underpants Aug 27 '26
And yet, my SS check comes nowhere near covering even the lowest rent. Maybe we should have required the wealthy to pay the same percent of SS tax on their income as I had to pay on mine. I had a millionaire friend (inherited) who paid 0% in SS tax because all her income was interest and dividends which are exempt from SS tax. I paid 15. 3% SS tax plus Medicare tax on my income because I was self employed. I struggled to pay taxes while also paying rent and utilities and sometimes fell behind and then paid IRS late fees and interest. Once she called me a tax deadbeat for failing to pay SS tax on time while she was exempt from paying SS tax on even 1 penny of her income. We don't speak any more. This was a good lesson in how the wealthy rig the economic and tax system against us to make us fail, then tell us we're deadbeats for not being able to overcome the financial obstacles they put in our way.
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u/imbartsimpsonwhothru Aug 27 '26
remove cap and means test the payments
if it's a rounding error in your income+assets then you don't need it
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u/oddistrange Aug 28 '26
We need to remove the contribution cap for the exceptionally high earners. There's no reason why someone like Bezos should only be contributing 22k annually to social security.
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u/Acceptable-Bus-2017 I voted Aug 28 '26
Blame the Republicans. Between the tax cuts for the rich the cap on SS income deductions and inflation caused by R presidents spending like there's no tomorrow... because they know only there generation will benefit.
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u/yaforgot-my-password Aug 28 '26
This is the 3rd news story I've seen on the social security cliff today. What are the chances that 3 different agencies spontaneously decided to release stories on the same topic the same day out of the blue?
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u/Character-Education3 Aug 28 '26
So its working as intended.
Stop with the gross headline. Its not us vs them.
Fund social security properly
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u/sagar1101 Aug 28 '26
Can you guys believe how bad inflation is. We are spending so much more on everything.
Also, can you believe boomers are getting more money then they put in. They should be able to live off what they put in 30 years ago.
Ignorance truly is bliss.
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u/TristanDuboisOLG Aug 28 '26
Compounding interest in this fund should have covered this problem 10x over.
Mismanagement of the fund is causing the problem. Stop borrowing funds out of it.
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u/subliver Aug 27 '26
GenX is also paying the price. It’s comical how that Generation is always left out of everything.
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u/ktaktb Aug 27 '26
It is foolish to strip out the employer match
It is anti labor to remove that from the earnings of boomers OR anyone else.
You created value which provided the ability to fund your entire social security contribution (employee and employer portion). If you were not working, there would be no payment from the employer, after all.
This is a bs attempt to push generational infighting where it doesnt belong. AND generally make people feel worse about social security....
THE MOST SUCCESSFUL AMERICAN PROGRAM IN HISTORY
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u/Brilliant_Kick3008 Aug 27 '26
False! Boomers paid into it 30 years and more. For some people, that’s all they have, and they paid for it! We all pay for everyone. Pick on the freaking wealth hoarders, instead of people who actually work. Tired of this trope pitting working generations against other working generations. Millionaires and billionaires and churches who don’t pay a single tax dollar should be your focus, but then you work for them, and are them.
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u/brettiegabber Aug 27 '26
This is an obtuse take. Voters aren’t going to remove social security. So it will keep getting paid.
Will it be financed in the most efficient way? No, that would require foresight and tough choices. Will the greater economy suffer needlessly due to poor planning? Yes. But will it be paid? Absolutely.
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u/Healthy_Intention_92 Aug 27 '26
Yeah, we've been brainwashed into believing in the inevitability of Social Security's demise, but at no point were we ever made aware of how easy it would be to make it solvent by raising the cap... Something's that's been purposefully obscured by Republicans and establishment Democrats (which should tell you exactly whom both factions actually serve.)
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u/Howie773 Aug 27 '26
Do you have a point with this meme? Do you even understand wow financial growth works ? 10$ invested in 1970 is not the same 10$ payed out today
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u/KillerIsJed Aug 27 '26
Sweet. Done blaming each other when its the government, billionaires, and techno fascists fucking us over.
If there’s any justice in the world, they will eventually be held accountable.
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