Ida May Fuller

Ida May Fuller (September 6, 1874 – January 31, 1975) was the first American to receive a monthly benefit Social Security check. She received the check, amounting to $22.54, on January 31, 1940.

Fuller was born on a farm outside Ludlow, Vermont. She spent most of her life in Ludlow, working as a legal secretary, but lived with her niece in Brattleboro, Vermont, during her last eight years. She retired in 1939, having paid just three years of payroll taxes. She received monthly Social Security checks until her death in 1975 at age 100. By the time of her death, Fuller had collected $22,888.92 from Social Security monthly benefits, compared to her contributions of $24.75 to the system.

This is to show you how social security is a huge ponzi scheme. You socialists and SS supporters, especially WuK please tell me how she "earned this" because she "paid for it". Do you not understand that she is just a microcosm of the entire system?

As Boomers begin to retire, the huge group of people putting money into the system will begin taking it out of the system, which then will be funded by a generation of workers—the so-called Gen X—whose numbers are some 15 million fewer.

Beginning January 1st, 2011 every single day more than 10,000 Baby Boomers will reach the age of 65. That is going to keep happening every single day for the next 19 years. In 1950, each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers. In 2010, each retiree's Social Security benefit is paid for by approximately 3.3 U.S. workers. By 2025, it is projected that there will be approximately two U.S. workers for each retiree. How in the world can the system possibly continue to function properly with numbers like that? Please understand this is the very essence of a ponzi scheme. Ponzi's always end the same way.....disaster for the investors.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


dude have you ever asked yourself or anyone hmmm does that person on welfare pay into social security? no they don't

53 million americans who currently draw social security many of which never have worked a day in their lives.
48 million americans who are on welfare
17 million americans who are drawing unemployment

120,000,000 americans who actually work

118,000,000 million americans are on some form of subsidy

120,000,000 million are financing those subsidies

and when the baby boomers and gen x time comes to get paid

ITS GAME OVER!

that is a recap of a post i made late last year those numbers have since risen.


if you can add and subtract you will get the picture but if you want to sit there in oblivion and count of mother and father government to be there for you when you need it...............it's going to be a very long long long wait.

reply to post by neo96


I agree 100%. however such macroeconomic arguments seem to not be understood here. I am trying a different tack of a micro-economic example. Perhaps this will be better understood. Their constant argument is "I paid for it, it's mine". Unfortunately, they do not understand that they are not paying for themselves. They are paying for others.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


amen brother

lots of luck people just want to keep their rose color glasses on

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


Jeez let's see.

As an example you used someone that retired in 1940, and had a minimal employment history. That person lived 35 years after retirement.

In market research this is called ... Never mind you're fired.

Originally posted by sonofliberty1776
Do you not understand that she is just a microcosm of the entire system?

You posted a case of a woman who is an extreme representation; lived 'til the AGE of 99 and did not contribute to system... My grandparents, mother and father all worked a half a century each and two of them died before collecting much of anything. I suppose they are sitting their graves, furious with anger that their surviving family members had an easier time due to the monthly income they did not receive in life.

99 year old lady who barely worked represents a microcosm of the America work cycle?

I think some people's definition of "ponzi scheme" is a little inaccurate to say the least if they are saying that SS is a ponzi scheme.

In some ways, it's the complete opposite, but hey, whatever works for you!

The pendulam swings both ways, look in the obituaries sometime, youll see plenty of people who worked there whole lives dying in there late 50's while never collecting a single penny.

reply to post by origamiandurbanism
Ok, so you don't believe me. Let's try this then....

For starters, let’s be clear on what a Ponzi scheme is.
Charles Ponzi (March 3, 1882–January 18, 1949)...


Say you’re in a scheming kind of mood and looking to get rich off it. Say you’re Bernie Madoff! You start by convincing a small group of people, say five of them, to each give you some money, say $1,000, with the promise that each month thereafter, you’re going to give them $50 back. That works out to $600 over the year, or a 60% rate of return. Not too shabby! These people are a little skeptical at first, but the promised 60% rate of return seems worth the risk. So you collect $5,000, but pay out $600 to each of these five people, $3,000 in total, leaving you ahead by $2000 at year end. So far so good — stick with me…

Here’s how you’ll fund the $3,000 you’re going to pay to those five people.

Not long after the first five, you find ten other people to also give you $1000, with the promise that they, too, will get $50 back each month thereafter. You take in $10,000, and over the course of the year, you pay back the $3,000 to the first group of five people, leaving you with $7,000 from the group of ten, plus the full $5,000 from the group of five, for a total of $12,000. But you still owe the group of ten $6,000. That’s OK, because after you pay them, you’re still ahead by $6,000.

You can repeat the same funding mechanism to pay back that group of ten. Find another ten people, or ideally, more than ten, promise each of them $50 a month, and pay them by using the incoming cash from yet another group of people. Keep this going for a while and all the people earning 60% a year on their money might even turn you on to their friends. It almost seems like a virtuous circle.

All the math for this will work out great provided you play by some simple rules. You absolutely must keep finding more people to pay in. You might need to start promising a lower return to new “investors”, just to help the math. Oh, and you’ll want to keep everyone in the dark about what’s really going on.

But eventually there just aren’t enough people in the world to solicit. And eventually some smart cookies begin to suspect too much of a good thing, and start asking pesky questions.

Ok, that is how a Ponzi works. So what about social security?

When Social Security was started in 1935, workers paid 2% of their first $3,000 earned, or a maximum of $60. Of course, only those aged 65 and older could collect anything, and many of those collectors conveniently died not long thereafter. So even without full participation by every wage earner, the number of people paying in dwarfed those being paid out, and money began to pile up in what became known as the “Social Security Trust Fund”.

As trends (and thankfully, lifespans) have changed, the payer/payee relationship has not stayed constant. Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute documents some of the demographics as follows:

In 1950, there were 16 workers paying taxes into the system for every retiree who was taking benefits out of it. Today, there are a little more than three. By the time the baby boomers retire, there will be just two workers who will have to pay all the taxes to support every one retiree.

- “Social Security: Follow the Math”, Michael Tanner, 1/14/2005

Think Cato’s some radical right-wing organization? Ok then, let’s see what the official Social Security Online website has to say in their 2010 summary:

Social Security expenditures are expected to exceed tax receipts this year for the first time since 1983. The projected deficit of $41 billion this year (excluding interest income) is attributable to the recession and to an expected $25 billion downward adjustment to 2010 income that corrects for excess payroll tax revenue credited to the trust funds in earlier years. This deficit is expected to shrink substantially for 2011 and to return to small surpluses for years 2012-2014 due to the improving economy. After 2014 deficits are expected to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation’s retirement causes the number of beneficiaries to grow substantially more rapidly than the number of covered workers. The annual deficits will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets in amounts less than interest earnings through 2024, and then by redeeming trust fund assets until reserves are exhausted in 2037, at which point tax income would be sufficient to pay about 75 percent of scheduled benefits through 2084.

So there’s your admission that this scheme has run its course, and even an admission that without legislative changes, people will be getting less than they thought.

Some people say, “There’s no problem here – just raise taxes further until we get the money that we need.” But what started at 2% has now become 12.4% when both the employee’s and the employer’s portions are considered. And keep in mind that the half paid by the employer represents monies that by definition can’t be paid to the employees or investors in the form of additional wages and/or returns. As the saying goes, corporations don’t pay taxes. People pay taxes.

Furthermore, the idea that we can just raise taxes and hit some projected revenue increase is fatally flawed by static analysis — the idea that people don’t respond to incentives and penalties. Tax increases routinely fail to yield the originally projected revenue. Lastly, you have to be willing to legislatively seize a lot of property that just doesn’t belong to you (regardless of what Michael Moore might say).

It’s not as if Franklin D. Roosevelt set out to create a Ponzi scheme. To this day, the nature of the system is fully disclosed, although now things are so scary that most people don’t want to look. Even when a few people are asked to look, like the recent commission headed by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the very President doing the asking looks away. In the meantime, people who do know that the scheme is mathematically unsustainable are drafting battle plans against those who might, horrors!, try to give some control over the situation back to individuals.

Like so many government programs, Social Security started off with great intentions, but morphed into something else. Some people refute the Ponzi scheme comparison largely on the grounds that unlike a traditional Ponzi scheme, Social Security is completely disclosed, was never sold to as a way to make anyone rich, and that it has good intentions rooted in compassion for the poor.

Hold on to your wallets. Just because a fraud is being perpetuated in full view doesn’t mean it’s not a fraud. It simply means people are either not paying attention, or don’t understand what they’re looking at. Regarding not trying to make anyone rich, that’s precisely correct, if only ironically. The creation of Social Security probably did incalculable damage by disincentivizing saving and investing. It ratcheted up moral hazard big time, and nudged untold millions of people into looking towards government for solutions, rather than to themselves and the private sector. And as for good intentions, isn’t that what a certain road to a certain nasty place is paved with?

IMO social security should be eliminated as quickly as possible. Why should present generations be allowed to vote to themselves the wealth that will be created by their children and grandchildren?

All i have to say to you young people is this..

Get out there and find a damn job!!

I retire in 15 years and i need you to pay for it..

stop reading this..

you are supposed to be looking for work..

git.....

reply to post by baddmove

I used to have that bumper sticker...."Work Harder, Millions of People on Welfare Depend On You".
It is funny and sad at the same time.

I have paid in all my quarters, started working at age 18 full time and still at it at age 55. But here is where I get really angry. Our government promised that if you pay in all your quarters you get full SS. Ok, I did that.
Well, the plant I worked in shut down when I was 44. I took a job as a secretary at a local community college. I found out recently that because I will get a little (not a lot) retirement money from that education job that the government thinks that is not right so they are going to take away some of my SS money.
I paid in all my quarters and I want what was promised me.
Some people get a private retirement and get full SS, so to pick and choose who gets full SS and who doesn't, well, that does not sit well with me.
My mom and dad, a few aunts and uncles..all passed before drawing SS.

Yeah but you are also forgetting people who rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars into social security in their lifetime and don't draw a dime when they retire because they have accrued wealth and have pensions and retirement funds, etc.

Originally posted by sharintexas
I have paid in all my quarters, started working at age 18 full time and still at it at age 55. But here is where I get really angry. Our government promised that if you pay in all your quarters you get full SS. Ok, I did that.
Well, the plant I worked in shut down when I was 44. I took a job as a secretary at a local community college. I found out recently that because I will get a little (not a lot) retirement money from that education job that the government thinks that is not right so they are going to take away some of my SS money.
I paid in all my quarters and I want what was promised me.
Some people get a private retirement and get full SS, so to pick and choose who gets full SS and who doesn't, well, that does not sit well with me.
My mom and dad, a few aunts and uncles..all passed before drawing SS.

Ya that's crappy

As governor of California, Ronald Reagan made it so state pensions would be adjusted based upon SS
payout... Which in turn also effects SS payout somehow...

I know a few old timers who went through it, sucks

sonofliberty, that second link basically admits SS isn't a ponzi scheme in the last couple paragraphs.

- It is not a fraud, people know what it is.
- Large numbers of people actually benefit from it = good for society, which is the opposite of a ponzi scheme (where one or a few benefit from deceiving many = bad for society, not to mention immoral and illegal).

SS is one of the most successful government run programs in US history. It's kept people (including the elderly) from being homeless.

It's definitely far from perfect and with baby boomers retiring it will put a definite strain on the program. But it can be tweaked, changed, the rich and big corporations could (and should, IMO) be taxed a little bit more (get rid of the "temporary" Bush tax cut for the top 2%) to help pay for it, etc.

As a society, I think it's really regressive to think of putting more and more people in borderline (or outright) poverty and thinking of things in terms of "me, me, me".

woah!

back up a minute look at your paychecks and take that figure and multiply it times by how many years you work

that does not ADD UP to hundreds of thousands of dollars that the individual earned in their lifetimes.

most people in fact underpay into social security compared to what most get back that is if they even worked at all.

think i am wrong look at your paystubs.

the government formula dictates how much you will be receiving the actual amount you pay in doesn't enter into the equation anywhere.

reply to post by origamiandurbanism

Then you missed the most important part of that last paragraph...

Hold on to your wallets. Just because a fraud is being perpetuated in full view doesn’t mean it’s not a fraud. It simply means people are either not paying attention, or don’t understand what they’re looking at.

So, do you understand what you are seeing? It really does not seem like it, unless you are a socialist. Then you likely think it is ok to rob Peter to pay Paul then to rob Mark to pay Peter and so on.

Originally posted by sonofliberty1776
reply to post by origamiandurbanism

 

Then you missed the most important part of that last paragraph...

Hold on to your wallets. Just because a fraud is being perpetuated in full view doesn’t mean it’s not a fraud. It simply means people are either not paying attention, or don’t understand what they’re looking at.

So, do you understand what you are seeing? It really does not seem like it, unless you are a socialist. Then you likely think it is ok to rob Peter to pay Paul then to rob Mark to pay Peter and so on.

I respect your opinion, sonofliberty, but we'll just have to agree to disagree. I just don't see how it is a fraud by any means. SS has been, historically, one of the most successfully run government programs in America's history. It's helped millions of people. It's not perfect and can be improved upon, no doubt about that.