Plan B.

< sigh> It's problematic. Hard to get any reliable figures as a basis of comparison because there isn't any good data on the rate of currency inflation.

I'll give you an example: Back in 1980 i was driving commercially. Our shop was non union so our drivers were averaging 5.60$/hr. We always looked up to the guys in the union shop because they were making 10.00$/hr.

10.00$/hr was pretty darned good money back then. You could comfortably support a family of four on that.

Your SSA contribution might have been a total of 12% of your wage or 200.00$/month ?

The average living wage today would nearly triple that contribution because the currency has been inflated / devalued.

~ It gets pretty narly when you start factoring shifting currency values ~



If your monthly SSA check was a straight up average of what you paid in over a lifetime of work it would only come out to a benefit of a few hundred dollars a month to live on ?

Do you remember the old saying " another day ...another dollar ? That goes back to when the SSA was first set up and the average wage was a dollar a day.

Imagine the problems involved with providing a Social Security check to that generation of retirees !

Bottom line .... this program was doomed to go bankrupt from the start. Maybe the only thing they could do is start sending contributions ( SSA tax ) directly to the treasury and lump it in with all of the other entitlements for budgetary purposes ?

As long as it maintains the appearance of a retirement fund and the old folks get their monthly check the rest is just details ?