Poverty is due to moral lacking

[Thorne]

Although you "paid" in you didn't really "earn" anything for those payments. Since you were not really buying something, you were being taxed by the Government to fund a benefit program.

I have always looked at it more as a forced savings account, which is more or less what it was intended to be. The actuality? Far different, sadly.

[DuncanONeil]

Agreed! Which is why there is always an argument. What it IS vs What was INTENDED. Seems like there is a party that wants credit, and to be the "good guys", based on what they intended to do rather then what they accomplish.

I have always looked at it more as a forced savings account, which is more or less what it was intended to be. The actuality? Far different, sadly.

[Snark]

I have always looked at it more as a forced savings account, which is more or less what it was intended to be. The actuality? Far different, sadly.

Unfortunately, many people have this misunderstanding. It was never intended, nor practiced as a forced savings account. It has always been a pay as you go collection and distribution system with no actual accounts assigned nor assets accumulated in any individual's name. There is no Social Security Trust account; it is simply a collection of Treasury Notes giving the SS system the right to retrieve the excess collections that the congress siphoned away. In its simplest terms it is a government operated Ponzi scheme. Always has been and will be until it is changed.