Written by Jim Gries   

The amount Social Security receives for every dollar average working Americans make has increased with each passing generation, and for every paycheck dollar lost, a potential savings dollar leaves the community. Financial institutions rely on individual savings to make loans for business expansion, which creates new jobs in the community. Using a 45 year working lifetime, SS received an average of 1.59% of a 1960 retirees working lifetime wages; for a 1970 retiree 3.21%; for a 1980 retiree 5.38%; for a 1990 7.57%; for the 2000 retiree 8.75%, for the 2010 retiree 11.40%, and today SS receives 12.4% for every dollar earned up to $106,800. Why aren’t banks making loans, and what’s the unemployment rate today? Perhaps the SS tax trend gives us a clue.
http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/207604/SS-Taxes-%26-Your-Generation
When payroll taxes were first levied, SS received 2% of the first $3,000 of annual wages. $3,000 represented the annual SS wage cap, meaning wages above the cap were exempted from SS taxation. Therefore, SS received the same $60 from a $6,000 annual wage as it did from a $3,000 annual wage. However the percent SS received of annual wages was only 1% for the $6,000 wage earner. In percentage terms, the more you make the less you pay. Today SS receives 12.4% for every wage dollar up to $106,800 annually. For a $500,000 wage SS receives 2.65% of annual wages; for a 1 million dollar wage earner it’s 1.32%, and 1/3 of 1% for a 10 million dollar CEO or athlete. This seems fair given maximum SS benefits are capped. However, the rules of engagement changed when pay as you go was replaced by pay in advance in 1983. Millions of average working Americans saw billions of their SS tax retirement dollars transferred to the general revenue fund, and used to subsidize income and corporate tax rates. What was to be earmarked for future SS retiree benefits was instead used to fund political earmarks that put those who have paid once on the hook to pay again. http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/207625/Make-More-Pay-Less
With today’s technology, advance warning of pending storms provides us ample time to prepare. For 45 years politicians have known 78 million babies were born between 1946 and 1964; and they knew the boomers would begin retiring in 2008. In spite of a decade’s long warning, politicians failed to plan for the financial storm now blowing up on the shores of the SS trust fund. They used the 1981 SS going bankrupt craft legislation that resulted in millions of average working Americans over paying their SS taxes by billions of dollars annually. Short term political gain ruled the day, and the groundwork was laid for destroying the very program they professed to be saving. 78 million baby boomers aren’t going away, and they’re not going to accept non-marketable special obligation bonds in lieu of their SS checks- would you?. http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/207813/Boomers-Are-Retiring
One major factor for determining SS benefits is the relationship between a workers wage over a period of time, and the annual SS wage cap. Recently the congressional budget office released research on the wages of different segments of the labor force over time. A person making $31,000 dollars in 1979 earned 135.7% of the $22,900 annual SS wage cap for the same year; this relationship qualified for maximum SS benefits at retirement. In 2010 the same wage earner was making $39,000, and the SS wage cap had increased to $106,800. The 135.7% relationship in 1979 is a 37% relationship in 2010, meaning SS benefits are reduced significantly. Will their golden years be spent stocking shelves at Wall Mart? http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/207668/Your-Wage-SS-wage-cap---your-SS-check
It’s April of 1983, Social Security reform legislation has just been signed, and the financial assault on middle class Americans, their families, and the communities they call home was about to begin in earnest. Over the past 23 years SS received 11.7 trillion in SS tax revenue, paid out 9.2 trillion, and created 2.5 trillion dollars of new debt. FL district 5 workers had 249 million dollars of new debt created from their SS overpayments annually. One has to ask, to what end, and for whose benefit were the SS tax overpayments for? This didn’t happen by accident, it was by political design. http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/207856/SS-%26-Your-Congressional-District