Ultimately, I want to privatize social security
The Social Security Administration (SSA) was originally established to be a voluntary service offered to workers of the lower middle class. Like many other "voluntary" governmental services it soon became mandatory. Either way, the costs outweigh the benefits now in America. Here are some numbers for you...
This graph is created using the scenario that you start working at the age of 18 making $8/hr, working 40hrs/wk, and you are investing the amount of money that you would have paid in FICA taxes (15.3% or about $220/month) for the duration of your working adult life and retiring at the age of 65 (total of 47 years).
This example assumes you will never get a wage increase (this is statistically impossible) and you will never work more/less than 40hrs/wk.
The red line and the number shown above ($2.3M) are calculated at a 10% average rate of return (the historic average of the S&P 500 is 10%), the black line is calculated at an average of 15% (an above average return but entirely possible), and the blue line was calculated at just 5% (historically speaking long term U.S. Governmental Bonds have performed at an average rate of 6.78%).
The average amount paid out yearly to a retired individual through the SSA in 2014 was $15,528 if unmarried and just $12,666 if married.
If we use the blue line at retirement ($470,235) and suspect you live to be 90 your yearly payout would be $18,809 ($3,281 or $6,143 more than SS would have paid for the exact same cost to you!), if we use the red line ($2.3M) and suspect you live to be 90 your yearly payout would be $92,080 (that's 6X what the SSA would have paid you for the exact same cost to you!!), and if we reach a bit and use the black line ($12.5M) and again assume you live to be 90 your yearly payout would be over $500K!!! Another great thing about this is that if you don't make it to 90 (it'll actually be much longer because of the interest), your children will receive a very large inheritance.
All this while only making minimum wage paying no more out of pocket than what you would now and without the fear that some crazed government will just decide it wants to cut the entire program with no fallback just to cause a political issue in favor of a more socialist economy.
Social Security is a wonderful concept but it has outlived it's usefulness if even the lowest end of the market can out perform it. I want to ideally provide a voluntary "buyout" from social security for current victims to get their money into a private retirement account, I want to continue providing SS benefits to those already in too deep to console any fears about the transition, I want to create an environment where investing into your retirement is automatic initially with no repercussions or restrictions on withdrawing from the program, and most of all I want you to be able to plan for retirement in the most effective way possible. There is nothing political about my desire to remove Social Security from the government's control, only number's. And money. I want the government to stop wasting my retirement and let me keep MY money that I worked hard for. That is all.
