oldmako

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to sound like a real curmudgeon and a Richard, but if you're here now and not yet age 35...you have a unique opportunity to retire wealthy without ever worrying about receiving SS.

Good luck.

ShyGuy

I'm at another place and (knock on wood) doing great for my age. However, that's not the point. My point is for someone like me who's been capping out social security wage limits since 28-29, paying a potential 36 years at max rates (6.2% of 132,900 and that ceiling keeps getting raised), I'll be lucky to see pennies on the dollar. Net amount "invested" will not equal net amount I get out.

I don't have any problem with what you said - just stop making us pay now to this ponzi scheme. 100% of my current SS witholdings shouldn't pay out for current retirees. It should be some formula where 75% pays current, and 25% is saved for us personally in a separate account/fund that we choose.

You can't provide financial security for someone 30 years from now by making them pay their whole life for people who retired before them. That makes a huge assumption on the generation that follows after, and we have no clue what their jobs will look like, their salaries will look like, their number of workers versus our number of retirees, etc.

Floyd

A 30yo who "averages" $250k throughout his career, puts away $5k/ mo, averages 6% on his investments, and retires at (cough) 65 will have $8.5 million as a parting gift. Provided you don't get divorced, furloughed, associate with a guy named Glenn, well, you get the picture.

Flynn

Very well said

oldmako

ShyGuy,

It's all a crapshoot and the Aholes on the Hill will pull the strings and ensure that they'll never need to work again, even after a single term. SS may be long gone but they'll still be there, sucking on The Gubmint teat. All the while badmouthing govt waste, inefficiency, and fraud. We've been had.

Do what you can, when you can and hold on.

Name User

If you look at public employee pension plans such as teachers, they are exempt from social security taxes, so they do not receive them. However their benefit payout is greater and they contribute much less in totality to the plans.

It sucks, butthat is the way social security is set up. It gets even worse for us, as when we retire our SS benefits will be taxed. Try to limit earned income in retirement via Roth accounts.

Deathray

Fairly certain we will see exactly zero legislation on anything until well after the 2021 inauguration. Especially if congress and POTUS remain the same. Zero legislation.

oldmako

If POTUS remains the same, I'm off to Costa Rica, New Zealand or Canada.

That will cheer some of you up, I'm sure.

ShyGuy

That’s one of CAs largest problems, public employee pension plans which are one reason taxes are so high here. Completely unrealistic for a private sector and yet we’ll carry the burden of their pensions. I do think they’ve worked the whole life and earned a retirement, but as it stands this way going forward there is no way to pay it all out.

A320 CA here, so I make too much to do Roth IRAs. And getting a 15.5% company 401K and being below 50, there’s only so much we can put away to the 401K before hitting the cap.

I don’t get CA liberals. They love taxing themselves to death and yet retire out of state. You’d think they learn the lessons as to why they’re fleeing in the first place, but from what I hear they take their same political mentality with them to Nevada, Texas, Washington, and Florida. My apologies on their behalf in advance if you live in those states......

Setopbug

You don't get California liberals because you watch too much TV and aren't capable of non-linear thought. You've been programed to believe the problems in this state are the result of failed liberal policies, when in reality it's much more complicated that that.

Our main issue out here is the cost of real estate. Nothing new gets built. People keep coming here. The economy is booming, most folks are working. One would like to buy a house.

But not so fast.

In the little bucolic suburb I live in, a teardown goes for 1.7 million. And almost everything on the market gets purchased by developers, torn down and a big old ugly toaster-like house goes in it's place for up to five million dollars.

And some fricking idiot buys the thing. All of the money and equity is removed from this neighborhood thanks to good old capitalism and a hard-woking, middle class airline pilot can't even afford to live here, unless they were lucky enough to purchase in the early nineties.

IOW, they are leaving the state because the only people who can afford to live here are:

• Inheritees.
  
• Dual-income, partnered attorneys.
  
• Start-up founders, 29 year old kids with a Cirrus SR-22 and a house in Santa Monica. (North of Montana)
  
• The homeless in their RV's.

These aren't D/R problems. Housing is out of control in solidly Republican Orange County, and we've had Republican Governors.

Don't like California? Fine. Don't come here. But kindly shut up about what you think you know about this state. If you think your 'side" has it figured out - congratulations! You've bought exactly what these folks are selling you. Our problems require us to abandon the stupid hierarchy of liberal or conservative politics and start working together to fix some serious problems. And nobody is willing.