Hi All. Please read below for a sickening example of another government program run amok. Both morally and economically. It makes the outrageous statement at the end that "this is YOUR money," forgetting to mention that most baby boomers will do OK with the current system and will end up receiving money that they didn't pay in, but for the younger generation, it will be disastrous.
Thanks!Aubrey
This author is misinformed. I worked for Social Security between 1967 and 1985. The law requires people who are eligible for spouse benefits and retirement benefits on their own work record to file simultaneously and to have simultaneous dates of entitlement. The government already figured out this potential leak in the system and from the very beginning outlawed it.
Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
Richard:
Is this possible the law has changed.
1985 is in the last century!
Les Mangus
All of the changes in the last 30 years to the Social Security laws have been in the direction of saving money and cutting benefits back. The student benefits were eliminated. The lump sum death benefit for burial was virtually eliminated. The age at which qualify for full benefits has become older and older.
Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
Interesting. Here is all I know, and find it as "sickening" as does Aubrey. When I turned 65 the Social Security Administration nearly drove me to total insanity, hounding me about filing for retirement benefits. I finally caved in just to get rid of them. Then they bothered me to death telling me that I was entitled to some thousands of dollars because I did not apply for "spousal benefits" when my husband retired several years earlier. I had no idea what that meant and did not care. They could not believe that I told them I did not want any more money from them other than what they absolutely forced me to have. Yes, some of what I receive is indeed what I contributed (and continue to contribute) out of my own pocket. But some of it is also what was extorted from my employers the many years before I opened my own business.
And BTW, I am assuming Aubrey's article is talking about the plain vanilla retirement benefit, not the explosion in Social Security's add-ons, such as disability, mental disorder payments, SSI.
Marcy