Social Security - More? Less? Privatize or Status Quo?

" Make it mandatory for everybody including Congress and Clergy?"

Congress and Clergy do pay into SS and collect from it.

Ministers pay self employment tax.

And Congressmen and Senators have been paying since 1988.

Ah okay, I'm behind the times there then. When I was working for the Church (and that's been some time ago now), Clergy could opt out.

I think I was hoping the comment would generate some discussion on whether Social Security should remain mandatory for American workers along with pros and cons of making some or all of it optional.

I think I'd like to discuss it, but it's very complicated. I certainly don't have a strong opinion about any one solution, but I do think it ought to be preserved for those who have already paid into it, and I think some form of guaranteed safety net should continue to be provided to all citizens of this country. But, as they say, the devil's in the details.

Keep it but mend it.

Enact the option to put part of one's SS tax in a private retirement account.

Then do whatever necessary to keep basic SS solvent.

I would guess those who are not in the investor class--anybody who invests in the stock market, real estate, etc. is a member of the investor class--would likely not chose to mess with investing a portion of their social security.

But for those of us who can see the advantages, I think it would work like this:

If my social security contribution on payday was $100, it would be deducted per usual from my check; however, I could designate that $10 (10%) would be invested in Ajax Twiddlywinks stocks or a mutual fund or some other approved fund. From that moment on the $10 would be at risk in case the market went down but would inrease if the market went up.

When I first made an investment was in early 1984. The Dow was then right at 1100. Today, 20 years later, it is at 10,380. I'm not sure what it was the year I started paying into social security, but if I had had the option to invest some or all of it into conservative investments then, I wouldn't be working today and would be living very very comfortablly. And even if I had lost the entire invested amount in the market it would not have made a huge difference and losing the entire amount in sound investments would be highly unlikely. If there was another crash similar to the Great Depression, the government isn't going to have the money to cover existing social security anyway.

To protect the fund, I could see the government requiring authorized investments to meet a certain standard or rating, but any who could meet the standard could be recipients of voluntary social security investments.

note

I would have no problem with private accounts. IF we can do with without increasing the deficit.

If we borrow the money to do this, any increase I'll see in my retirement fund, would be offset by interest paid to treasury bonds. In addition, if we have to borrow to do this, it promotes a more unstable economy, which we all know does *wonders* to the stock market.