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Comment by jl2718 | Hacker News Reader

27% of social security recipients are 0-64 years old. These are potential lifetime liabilities, not just 65-72.5.

SS is paid for by higher wages, which happens when there are less workers, not more. And then there will also be less to support in the future. The solvency of a fund depends on future outlays, not just cash flow. Do they think we should increase population exponentially forever?

I see a lot of shilling for policies to increase mostly low-income populations. I can’t imagine that they believe their own theories. But I can imagine that they benefit from them. Fancy that; somebody wants you to work more and get less.

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"SS is paid for by higher wages"

Social Security taxes are capped at the first $142k earned. Any income beyond that is exempt from the tax, which means that the top end of wages provide nothing to the program. Those income earners also happens to be the ones who can most afford an additional tax burden.

Irrelevant to statement. Higher average wages make the system more sustainable.

Even someone at 142k is subsidizing the low earners.

And someone at $250k is paying a far lower effective payroll tax rate than someone earning $50k.

correct. I am not talking about effective rates.

SS was originally sold as a personal savings plan, not a wealth redistribution plan. This is why payout is tied to contribution, and elders who didn't contribute are left to suffer in poverty.

If we want it to act as to redistribute wealth, we should simply scrap it and replace it with an income tax and means tested benefit.

At the same time, SS disbursements are capped as well. So both input and output are capped.

> SS is paid for by higher wages, which happens when there are less workers, not more

SS is paid for by wages in aggregate, not on average.

Either of more workers paying into social security or an increase in average wages (assuming that the increases are below the threshold at which income taxes fund SS) will increase the amount of funds available for SS.

You’re ignoring the part about future liabilities.

What is so hard to understand here? Decreasing average wages makes the system less sustainable. This should not be controversial.

It's actually worse. Since there's an income cap of something like 140k, it's worse to have 1 person make 280k than 2 people making 140k.

Yeah that’s what I was calling out about the threshold.

Visa workers pay into social security but get no benefits and I believe those are on an upward trend.

So, as usual, we just turn it into an externality for Mexico and India to deal with.

non-citizen workers get the same benefits as citizens when it comes to social security. however, most are not work here long enough to acquire enough credits to be worth much.

members of my family are Canadian citizens and collect US SS benefits.

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