Social In-Security

I have become a welfare case, and I am not ashamed. I did not change my opinion of the entitlement culture the American welfare system has spawned. I still think people who are young and capable should work for a living as much as possible. I don't even object to short term unemployment "benefits" to tide one over a period of looking for work. This is actually a form of insurance that an employer partially pays for on behalf of employees; it can be considered part of the worker's wage. I am not in favor of the federal government turning unemployment insurance into a welfare program as it has recently. I also think the system needs to be revamped so that a person could work part time and still collect unemployment benefits, but that is another subject.

The subject here is my welfare -- literally. I have reached the statutory age at which Social Security Retirement benefits are available. And I am happily collecting my fair share. I use the word "fair" intentionally because it is only fair that I should get a return on my "investment" in the Social Security system that has been confiscating my wages for 46 years. When I started weeding the fields at Weller's Nursery at 16, the federal government began taking a portion of my paltry $2.50/hour earnings and stashing them away for my eventual retirement. (OK, I know the money was never "stashed away;" it was spent as soon as they got their hands on it, but let's pretend.)

Here is how my "investment" in Social Security might typically look. If I had earned an average of $30,000 per year over my 46 year working lifetime and invested 13% (SS contribution) at 5% interest, I would have an account balance today of approximately $553,344 (based on annual contributions, not monthly -- that would be a higher number). If I invested that amount as a lump sum at age 62, I could draw $27,667 every year if my investment earned the same 5% for the rest of my life. When I finally die, my heirs would still get $553,344 in my estate.

My Social Security retirement benefit is less than half of $27,667. The odds are I won't make it to 92, so I won't collect anywhere near what I have "invested," and my heirs cannot inherit any remaining "balance" of my Social Security "investment." In other words, I am not sponging off the system taking money I haven't earned; rather, I am being short-changed, and so are my children.

As a Christian, I subscribe to the biblical principle that senior citizens should eat of the labors of their own hands. I do not think it harsh that the Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians that one who would not work should not eat. I contend that I have worked for the bread I now eat, even though it is paid for from my Social Security benefits. I earned those benefits and then some. I am sorry that our government turned the system into a giant Ponzi scheme by spending instead of investing my contributions and those working today are funding my retirement from their earnings. In a way, even that arrangement reflects a biblical principle that the younger should care for their older.

I regularly thank the students in my classes for endeavoring to improve their lot and earn better incomes. (Yes, I work part time to supplement my meager benefits; but I must take care not to earn too much or my benefits will be reduced even more.) My advice to anyone under the age of 50 is to save and invest every dollar that can be allotted. All Ponzi schemes eventually topple, and the one known as Social Security is quickly headed for a fall. Young people who are not investing for retirement are violating another biblical principle: look to the ant, grasshopper.