Interesting Fact It's Our Money

by **Horizon** Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:53 am

I got this off of Facebook and thought it was interesting. I kinda always felt the same way about it.

PATRIOT ALERT!! Social Security Name Changes / READ

A Share from Patriot Mike Brown:
This is worth reading and thinking about. Pay attention to your next Socia...l Security income, whether you get a check or an electronic deposit....note what it is now called...see below.. Have you noticed, your Social Security check is now referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment"? I'll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it. The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.”This isn’t a benefit – its earned income!Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too.It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employer’s contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment.Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month. That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration (Google it - it’s a fact).

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)!I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did.They took our money and used it elsewhere. They “forgot” that it was OUR
money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently, they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer. But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit,” as if we never worked to earn every penny of it. Just because they “borrowed” the money, doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!

Let’s take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government –Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going, for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it. Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.

by IQD4US Wed Mar 06, 2013 2:35 pm

It is true that Social Security retirement payments are classified as "federal benefit payments," but this terminology is not new: the word "benefits" has been applied to Social Security retirement payments since the Social Security program was enacted in the 1930s. The terminology is also not unique to Social Security retirement payments, as the phrase "federal benefit payments" applies to a broad class

of payments made to (or on behalf of) individuals under federal government programs — everything from Social Security Disability Insurance to Medicare to farm subsidies are considered "federal benefit payments." The fact that workers themselves contribute much of the money that goes into the Social Security retirement fund doesn't affect its classification as a benefit.

Likewise, the word "entitlement" has long been the standard terminology for payments made under government programs that guarantee and provide benefits to particular groups. Persons who have demonstrated their eligibility to claim such payments are entitled (i.e., "qualified for by right according to law") to receive them. The usage has nothing to do with pejorative connotations associated with the word (e.g., "a sense of entitlement") which are often applied to denote people expecting or demanding something they do not merit.

As for the calculations about savings detailed in the latter half of the above-quoted example, they're far off the mark. Social Security contributions from individuals and employers combined have never "totaled 15% of your income before taxes"; the current level is 12.4%, and historically the contribution rates have been significantly less.

Many people confuse Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) payments, which are currently assessed at a 15.3% rate, with Social Security, but they are not the same thing. FICA payments include both Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Interesting Fact It's Our Money

Interesting Fact It's Our Money

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