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Perhaps if you didn't have 6.2% (or 15.4% if you're self-employed) of your money taken away from you, you could afford to retire.

As for your "affordable" pension plan...

There won't be enough younger people working to pay all of the benefits owed to those who are retiring. At that point, there will be enough money to pay only about 73 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits.

-Social Security Statement, Page 1

If your bank statement said "By 2042, there won't be enough other depositors depositing checks with us to pay all of the balance owed to you. At that point, there will be enough money to pay only about 73 cents for each dollar you deposited with us", would you continue to bank with them?

> I wonder if your bank cleaned out your account, you would claim it was your own fault, because "I'm a sucker for trusting them with all that money."

You choose an interesting analogy.

There won't be enough younger people working to pay all of the benefits owed to those who are retiring. At that point, there will be enough money to pay only about 73 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits.

-Social Security Statement, Page 1

If your bank statement said "By 2042, there won't be enough other depositors depositing checks with us to pay all of the balance owed to you. At that point, there will be enough money to pay only about 73 cents for each dollar you deposited with us", would you continue to bank with them?

SSN's aren't unique, they get reused

Wrong. Not legally, at any rate.

The keyspace is limited, however. Ideally, 1 billion distinct values. In practice, somewhat fewer. Groups 800-999 are not assigned, and Railroad Retirement Act numbers extend the range with "R##" "area" numbers.

Read the SSN's website

At some point, the game will end, leaving a bunch of folks with nothing in return for their hard earned dollars.

Hey, if it's good enough for the government....

Here are some facts to consider.

Number one killer in the US- Heart Disease.
Second most prolific killer- Cancer.
Number one actual cause of death- Tobacco.

Meanwhile, the US government resists allocating federal research funds for a treatment that might lengthen peoples' lives. It also desires an international treaty against researching this medical technology- Stem Cell Research.

In 2018 benefits owed will be more than taxes collected, and [the current] Social Security will need to begin tapping the trust funds to pay benefits.

The US Government continues to subsidies tobacco farmers and resists holding the tobacco companies responsible for the damage incurred by their products.

Good for the economy, good for the future of social security: fewer humans living longer.

We get enough laws written, we'll be just like roman empire was at the end of its days. Its inevitable.

Total crap. 40%? Are you sure it's not 41% or 39%? Where did your numbers come from?

Here's something published by the bean counters in charge of the thing. Even in 2078, it's not more than 19% of the taxable payroll.

"Continued reductions in death rates and relatively low birth rates will cause a significant upward shift in the average age of the population and will push the cost rate above 19 percent of taxable payroll by 2078 under the intermediate assumptions."

And, look at this graph to show the cost of SS versus the GDP:

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR04/images/II_project_ IID5.gif

All these doomsayers are expecting all of us to believe that nobody will ever take the steps of 1) increasing the social security tax or 2) increasing the retirement age to keep the fund solvent. That's obviously ridiculous. When people are living to be 95 years old on average, the age at which the pension kicks in will be raised as well.

Why do you suppose that the same people who claim that SS will be gone when it's out of money are the very same people who keep borrowing money even though the US Government is severely in debt. Shouldn't these people also be claiming that the US Government will be gone far sooner than the Social Security fund will be?

Here is a graph from the most recent report from the fund's trustees. Expenditures exceed tax income around 2018, and the fund is exhausted around 2042. This is according to demographic estimates based on current actuarial tables, birth rate models, etc.

Of course, if something causes a significant shift in demographics, such as a low birth rate or high immigration rate, the projections will change accordingly. This is discussed elsewhere in the report. But barring any major changes to the population or social security taxes, don't count on social security for retirement.

Here is a graph from the most recent report from the fund's trustees. Expenditures exceed tax income around 2018, and the fund is exhausted around 2042. This is according to demographic estimates based on current actuarial tables, birth rate models, etc.

Of course, if something causes a significant shift in demographics, such as a low birth rate or high immigration rate, the projections will change accordingly. This is discussed elsewhere in the report. But barring any major changes to the population or social security taxes, don't count on social security for retirement.

Can you provide a reference that it is illegal?

Seriously, this is not a troll....I see this statement often and I want to know if it's an urban myth or not.

Hmmm. 1.5 trillion of the debt is held by the Social Security Trust Fund. If you look at the Debt Site you'll see that over 3 trillion is in by intragovernmental holdings. 4 trillion is held by the Public, of which 1.7 trillion is held by foreign investors.

Want to stop the Ponzi scheme? Stop the greatest one of all time, Social Security.

Furthermore, there is a rule that if you and another family member in your immediatly family have a SSN that differs by only a single digit, the gov't has to let you request a new one. (Notice, that's a single digit, not numerically next to each other). In my family, we have 3 out of 4, but they end in 07, 09 and 10 (actually, now that I've re-read the rule, we might qualify, they say sequential). So we nearly qualified for the rule. Having the first 7 digits and a last name match does create problems for credit reporting companies. Did I mention that there are 5 kids in my family, and we all have names that start with "K". They skipped the 08 one intentionally so that we would not not have sequential ones. So I'm not sure if I am interpreting the rule correctly or not.

http://www.lawsmart.com/ssfaqs/sscards.html

That even references the documentation for the form that you request to have your SSN number changed.

http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/ssa.cfg/php/en duser/std_adp.php?p_sid=A5OT3Wmh&p_lva=77&p_li=&p_ faqid=79&p_created=955483070

That link has my session in it, the FAQ is FAQ id 79, and is in the Social Security Number and Cards, the sub-category is General- SSNs and Cards. If you look around you'll find it. The following are the criteria:

• Sequential SSNs assigned to members of the same family
• Certain scrambled earnings situations
• Certain wrong number cases
• Religious or cultural objection to certain numbers/digits in the SSN
• Misuse by a third party of the number holder's SSN and the number holder has been disadvantaged by that particular misuse
• Harassment, abuse or life endangerment situations (including domestic violence)

If I didn't have nearly perfect credit, I'd apply to change it just because there are members of my family who know my SSN, whom I wish didn't. Members of my family are nearly indistingishable on the phone from me. Even by other close relatives.

I'd like to see the reference material on non-special SSN's that get re-issued. The SSO has special procedures to ensure that they aren't re-issued for long periods of time after someone is dead. According to the FAQ, no SSN has ever been re-issued (some of the 000-XX-XXXX specials get reused). The SSN has only assigned 450Million of the 1Billion available. In the FAQ search for an entry with the word "died", it'll be one of the first few.

Got any more urban legends you'd like me to debunk?

Sorry that I can't provide direct links, but the site doesn't give them back. You have to have the cookies and goop hooked up to it.

I read up on the rules about SSN's at great length when slashdot posted the story about the man who doesn't have an SSN. There are all sorts of neat rules about them. The IRS is a serious pain to deal with because of it, but it can be done.

Kirby

Huh, that's not what the Social Security Administration says:

Getting a new Social Security number

If you have done all you can to fix the problem and someone still is using your number, we may assign you a new number. We cannot guarantee that a new number will solve your problem.

You cannot get a new Social Security number if:

* You filed for bankruptcy;
* You intend to avoid the law or your legal responsibility; or
* Your Social Security card is lost or stolen, but there is no evidence that someone is using your number.

Bush's plan involves at least partial privatization: if someone chooses to risk their money in the markets, 2% of their SS taxes can be diverted into private accounts, so that only 4.3% (of the total 6.3%) go into the pyramid scheme.

My question is this:

Senator Kerry: Would you voluntarily invest your retirement savings at a bank whose own very own account statements at socialsecurity.gov state, in effect, "Your account balance are based on current management policy. Management has made changes to the policy in the past and can do so at any time. The policy governing withdrawals may change because, by 2042, deposits of new money will be enough to pay only about 73 percent of account balances."

If so, why, and if not, why do you oppose even partial Social Security privatization?

At least Charles Ponzi had the integrity to make participation in his pyramid scheme voluntary.

The increase in the national debt during Clinton's administration is due to interest.

Try that logic on a loan you owe personally sometime. "Listen, I know my mortgage payment is due, and I have most of it, but since the part I don't have is just interest, well, I have a balanced budget and everything is fine... right?" It won't fly with the bank, it doesn't fly with me. Clinton didn't balance the budget, though fiscally, he did have us headed in the right direction.

But I don't think it was technically the interest they weren't paying. Since the "Social Security Trust Fund" takes in 200-300 Billion more each year than it spends, and Congress sees fit to spend my retirement today, the actual budget deficit is off by exactly that amount. Hence, the budget is 'balanced' yet the national debt continues to increase.

That infuriates me because in every one of my paychecks, I only see half of what is payed into that trust fund being removed. The other half is a matching tax payed by the employer. It's like those sneaky little surcharges that are so popular in business these days. You never see it. It's just taken from you without your knowledge or benefit. Add that back into my taxes payed last year, and I payed more Social Security tax than I did federal income tax. Squandering what is legally mine knowing they, like Social Security itself, will be long gone by the time it's my turn to collect isn't insult enough. They are dishonest and less than forthright in the collection of the tax, and that really makes my blood boil.

Not to dismiss the remainder of your post offhand, but bully for you. You live within your means, and you and yours apparently got decent jobs with your degrees. Thank whatever lucky star or deity you pray to. Your friends may squander what they have, but don't discount the fact that you are also fortunate to be in the position to live within your means. Not everyone can afford every luxury, like food and shelter. Tough choices. When things are that tight, every penny of tax hurts. To then watch that tax be wasted on every useless bureaucrat and every corporate tax break is deplorable. Watching the government live beyond it's means when you cannot afford to live within your own makes you see these people for what they are...

But being that you appear to be interested in health care, you certainly must have an opinion on reimportation of prescription drugs, no? Do me a favor. Look at that word: reimportation. I have never seen or heard that word used before this election year. How is it that drugs made in this country cost more than they do across the border and overseas? Perhaps there is a deeper issue? Do me a favor... If you get a politician in front of a camera, just ask him/her, "Why are drugs more expensive here in the first place?" following his response with "Isn't that price fixing?" =) Thanks! Nice chatting with ya BTW :-)

Libertarianism places much emphasis on the theory that individuals can pull themselves up by their bootstraps to success. With good enough education, the theory goes, even the poorest members of our society should be able to become wealthy entrepreneurs. Under this model, if you're impoverished, it's simply because you're not trying hard enough. But bootstrapping is a myth; even if it were possible (for many people it is just not), millions of people do not have the desire to start their own business, and simply want to make a fair and livable wage working their 9-5 job.

Because Libertarianism is even more conservative than Republicanism, impoverished people would be denied many of the resources they need to survive. Libertarians call for the dismantling of welfare, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, and the reliance on private charities to care for our neediest citizens. Reagan gave us a taste of this logic when he all but dismantled the federal financial aid program for college students. The theory was that the private sector would step up and help our nation's students.

They didn't.

Instead, students and their families often face the burden of massive debt upon graduation, limiting their ability to start building their lives. The Libertarians point out that Americans already contribute over $125 billion to charity already. But Social Security alone contributes $535 billion to our citizens. That much cannot be generated from charitable contributions, even if the tax benefit is increased.

If Libertarians such as yourself had their way, our nation's poor would sink even deeper into poverty and debt while our nation's wealthy would grow wealthier and wealthier. Sure, the rich would donate to private charities to lessen their tax burden--but less "sexy" charities would suffer. Would you rather give money to a charity for mentally disabled homeless people (who now receive Social Security), or to Cancer research?

The role of government is to take care of its citizens, and ensure that we do the right things for society. Private corporations and organizations have no such goals, and cannot be entrusted with such responsibilities. If Libertarians had their way, the government would step back and let people sink or swim. This is short-sighted, cynical and above all, cruel.

Which brings me to my question, Mr. Badnarik: If the government is there to care for its citizens, why do you want to outsource this responsibility to the private sector, which has no real incentive to work for the public good? In short, where is the compassion?

Sincerely, Ben Syverson

Such as this: http://www.ssa.gov/retirement/retirechartred.htm

How many of you know that currently your full retirement age is 67? What do you want to bet it will soon be higher?

Maybe if they didn't make exceptions for the 1943-1954 group Social Security might last a bit longer.

BTW, that's not a rhetorical question, but if you are American, you may interpret it that way. Since you seem to like Marx, I guess you've never lived in a marxist state or you are keeping your private utopia a secret from the rest of us.

It cannot be counted on to be unique....the numbers are recycled

Are you trolling or just tin-foiled? According to the source SS numbers are not reused. To quote: "No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder's death."

Not that I don't agree with you on refusing to give it out -- I don't see why my power company needs to know what it is. But they don't recycle the numbers.

1) Congress can override SCOTUS decisions. It takes a Constitutional amendment to do so (making the law constitutional by changing the Constitution to suit), and so it is very difficult, but it can be done.

2) The executive branch appoints justices. It's a little-known fact that even SCOTUS justices can be impeached and removed from office, even though they otherwise hold life terms; this has never been done, but it is possible.

3) The SCOTUS cannot act of its own volition; it must be called upon before it can do anything. The Executive and legislative branches have limited power, but they can use (most of) those powers at will; the SCOTUS is powerless unless actually called on by one of the other branches, or by the people.

And my social...
078-05-1120

Off topic, but since that number's the most misused ever maybe you should go with one of these instead.

If the parent had read the link,

I'm assuming you're referring to the UNCG link, which is clearly discussing university policy. The university falls under both the federal and state government agency rules. (Federal because it's receiving US DofEd funding, and state because it's UNC, for pete's sake.) Note that the bit of law they quote at the bottom only applies to government agencies.

And, if your landlord doesn't want to do business with you because you won't give your social, get 'em prosecuted for it. The link clearly states giving up a social security number must be voluntary.

Which link are you talking about? The first one is only discussing University policy, and the second says almost the opposite. While technically it's voluntary, a private business doesn't have to do business if you don't give 'em your SSN. Read the other link, the one from the Social Security Administration:

If a business or other enterprise asks you for your Social Security number, you can refuse to give it to them. However, that may mean doing without the purchase or service for which your number was requested.

Perhaps a HUD apartment couldn't ask for your SSN, but I know of no reason a random landlord couldn't.

And as Detritus pointed out, some entities-- such as employers, banks, and others-- may legitimately require your SSN before they're legally allowed to do business with you. For example, employers and banks need your SSN to file reports with the IRS.

Sorry, SSA info about Identity Theft

Stop allowing companies, the federal, state and local governments to use your SSN for identification purposes, in any case when it doesn't match certain exemptions it MUST be optional. READ the back of your social security card, stay informed and if this isn't a case of a need to change your social security number, I don't know what is.

unless your government is tracking and keeping books on everybody.

That's pretty much what they're doing.
THIS is how it all got started.

I am sure there are other reasons you could get your SSN changed, like "I'm Bill Gates, and every jokester in the world has my SSN..."

Need a fake SSN for your long distance service? (Really they don't need this) use 078-05-1120. It's an Eisenhower era specimen number that works 99% of the time.

LOL, not anymore.

The decade that Andrew was the most popular name is the 1980's. In that decade, 1.4% of all American males were named Andrew (source). We can also assume that he speaks English as a first language, which makes him one of roughly 326,652,000 people. Halving this (because we're assuming male), we get roughly 2,300,000 people. Now we just need to eliminate the proportion that have the ability to write a virus.

If we make some reasonable assumptions - that he's between 14 and 22, and has an interest in computers, is fond of Linux, tends to be interested in, and good at maths and Sciences, and has near exclusive access to his own computer - we could eliminate a lot of these 2,300,000. Still probably leaves several quite a few people though.

Regardless, please do us all a favor and get a proper book of names, and don't give a child a name that is going to raise hackles for their whole life.
There are far better ways to express individuality than naming a poor infant LeDeZeppelin.

Have you taken a look at a baby name book lately? They're full of all kinds of crappy names that will turn a reasonable set of DNA into a watchtower-dwelling rifle toter.

The Social Security Administration's web site has a pretty neat feature... for the last 12 years, they've kept statistics on the 1000 most popular baby names each year, for boys and girls. They've got all kinds of features, such as searching on a particular name for its rankings, top five names in each state, and so on.

When my husband and I were mulling over children's names, for the boy's we started at 40 and read down the whole list to get ideas. For girls, we started at 300. (Though we ended up picking a girl's name from another source.)

Names go through fads. Jennifer was the number one girl's name from about 1969 to 1987. And couldn't I tell, when half the girls I went to school with were Jennifer, Jen, Jenny, Jennie... right now, the fad is kinda weird, but we'll get to a point (in about 60 years) when those will all be "old lady" or "old man" names.

It's not just the mustache, either. Just think about it; when was the last time you met anyone named Adolf who was born after 1945? It used to be a modestly popular name, but now it's all but extinct. 100 years ago, Adolf was about as popular a name as Thaddeus, Winston, or Angus- not tremendously popular, but common enough to be 581 on the Social Security Administration's list of most popular baby names for the 1900's. In the 1950's, though, it didn't even make the top 1000, being pushed out by such winning boys' names as Derwin, Melton, and Vernell. It still can't make the top 1000, being pushed out (for the 1990's) by names like Nikhil, Stetson, and Rohan.

Times have changed and computers have proliferated, and I've only done some casual investigation, but I've never found any guarantee by the US government that the SSN is unique.

I delved into this up a while ago for a project at work.
Due to the way they are assigned, it seems the SSAN cannot be unique in all areas.

The SSAN is assigned by state or area. The first 3 digits denote what state the number was assigned in.

For instance, an SSAN created for a New York resident gets 050-134 as the first 3. That leaves 86 million possible combinations. Fair enough, since the pop. of NY is currently ~18 million. A lot left over to prevent duplication.

New Hampshire doesn't seem to be too bad. A pop of 1.2 million, and SSAN's from 001-003. Just over 50% free combinations.
Consider though all the people who were born there, and have passed away. You may be getting a recycled SSAN.

But consider Florida. The pop. of Florida is currently ~15.2 million. Florida SSAN's range from 261-xx-xxxx to 267-xx-xxxx. Leaving a possible 7 million combinations. How can that be truly unique? (Ok...a LOT of Florida residents moved in from out of state, but still).
California is just as bad. SSAN's from 545-573 (28 million combo's), with a population of 32.5 million.

North Carolina, with a single SSAN group (232) has a population of just under 8 million. Unique? Doesn't seem to be.

Attach the person's name to the SSAN, and you get pseudo uniqueness. Joe Blow, 001-01-0001 will be the only one. But that is only uniqueness through chance, not truly unique.

Times have changed and computers have proliferated, and I've only done some casual investigation, but I've never found any guarantee by the US government that the SSN is unique.

I delved into this up a while ago for a project at work.
Due to the way they are assigned, it seems the SSAN cannot be unique in all areas.

The SSAN is assigned by state or area. The first 3 digits denote what state the number was assigned in.

For instance, an SSAN created for a New York resident gets 050-134 as the first 3. That leaves 86 million possible combinations. Fair enough, since the pop. of NY is currently ~18 million. A lot left over to prevent duplication.

New Hampshire doesn't seem to be too bad. A pop of 1.2 million, and SSAN's from 001-003. Just over 50% free combinations.
Consider though all the people who were born there, and have passed away. You may be getting a recycled SSAN.

But consider Florida. The pop. of Florida is currently ~15.2 million. Florida SSAN's range from 261-xx-xxxx to 267-xx-xxxx. Leaving a possible 7 million combinations. How can that be truly unique? (Ok...a LOT of Florida residents moved in from out of state, but still).
California is just as bad. SSAN's from 545-573 (28 million combo's), with a population of 32.5 million.

North Carolina, with a single SSAN group (232) has a population of just under 8 million. Unique? Doesn't seem to be.

Attach the person's name to the SSAN, and you get pseudo uniqueness. Joe Blow, 001-01-0001 will be the only one. But that is only uniqueness through chance, not truly unique.

There is one state, that I can find, that has specific laws saying that you do not have to provide you social security number to obtain services and that is Rhode Island.

A few months ago, I signed up for new cell phone service. They asked for my social security number and I told them I did not want to give it to them. They then said that I would have to go with a pre-paid plan or give a rather large security deposit. After haggling a little and escalating this, they found out that I did not have to provide a social security number to establish service, nor did I need to go with a pre-paid plan or leave a large deposit. My driver's license (which does not have my social) was enough.

Look at THIS page on the social security admin's website.

Here is the state law link

Since the Social Security Administration is a Federal agency, I doubt that the State of California has the ability to hand out Social Security cards.

Apparently stealing copyright is more important than stealing lives in this country.

Well, examine the costs:

Social Security Death benefits (cost of a life): $255

Political donations from the movie industry in 2002 (cost of copyrights): $10,498,466

I think it's pretty obvious which one is more valuable in America.

Here are some more articles about the infamous number: Social Security Administration, Snopes Urban Legends (True Story), Wikipedia (whole list of invalidated numbers). Interesting stuff for a Karma whore like me! :)

A fair bit of that is due to decreases in infant mortality and childhood diseases. 140 infant deaths per 1000 live births (the infant mortality rate in the USA in 1900) will drive down the average life span significantly. The median life span in the USA in 1900 was 58, compared to 80 for 2000, an increase of only 38%.

And the maximum life span as measured by the probability at birth of reaching a given age of 0.00001 moved only from 105 to 112 in the last 100 years. So while we are seeing improvements in life span, we won't be seeing 600 year old folk anytime soon.

Here is some actuarial data from the Social Security Administration

I would hope that most slashdot readers aspire to more. Working at a job until age 65 puts you in poverty, at the mercy of public assistance in the US; see Social Security Facts & Figures. Have courage to rise above the average?!

Got news for ya, bub. When "government pensions" were introduced, the age was set to 65 because Bismarck knew that very few people would live long enough to collect. The average life expectancy was 45 years.

If you read through the weasel words at the bottom of the page, even the operators of the largest variation of this pyramid scam on the face of this earth admit as much.

Which of course, is a stupid thing to do, since the SS# is NOT GUARANTEED TO BE UNIQUE.

While they're are valid reasons to using something other than SS#'s for systems such as bank records, uniqueness is in fact one of it's strengths:
http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/georg e/4199.asp

If you don't believe them, check out the SS site:
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/ssa.cfg/php/en duser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=86

You can find out a little more information about Social Security numbers on this page on HowStuffWorks.

Several months ago I read a post here that got me thinking about my SSN. According to the post, the SSN was not intended to be an ID number, but has gradually evolved into one. (Anyone who can post a reference to confirm this would be appreciated. I Googled around for a while but could only find references that equated SSN with ID).

Find someone older who has an SSN card. It was printed on the card itself that the number was not to be used as an ID.

You could also read the FAQ at the ssa ( http://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html):

Q21: When did Social Security cards bear the legend "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION"?

A: The first Social Security cards were issued starting in 1936, they did not have this legend. Beginning with the sixth design version of the card, issued starting in 1946, SSA added a legend to the bottom of the card reading "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY PURPOSES -- NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION." This legend was removed as part of the design changes for the 18th version of the card, issued beginning in 1972. The legend has not been on any new cards issued since 1972."

Of course, they can refuse service if you don't give them the number.

When I worked at Intel, we all had WWID's (World-Wide ID). I thought, "great, then my health insurance can use the WWID." Nope. They still used the SSN. Gotta love it when my SSN is on every card I have as a "subscriber number". Makes it that much easier to hijack my identity if my wallet is stolen.

Social security numbers are not random.

The first 3 digits come from the zip code where you were born. The next 2 are a "group id" that may be a little bit random, but it doesn't change very often. The last 4 are just incremented for each new ssn. In this case only the most significant bit matters so it's easy to guess.

Obviously the last name is not even a secret.

Wrong they are unique.

The are unique.

SSNs are unique. nobody has ever been isued a duplicate, and AFAIK there has only been 1 person who got theres replaced(as opposed to a whole new identity). Her SSN was used as an example of where to put a SSN in a wallet, but everybody who bought that wallet thought that was there SSN.

It's likely a lot more people have received new SSNs if the SSA has the procedure for doing so on their web page.

According to the gov't SSNs are never reused currently. Here is the link. This link may timeout.. but it is in the frequently asked questions at ssa.gov.

According to the gov't SSNs are never reused currently. Here is the link. This link may timeout.. but it is in the frequently asked questions at ssa.gov.