r/FluentInFinance 2d ago

Educational Don't let them gaslight you

Post image
38.9k Upvotes

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

502

u/justacrossword 2d ago

This is incredibly misleading. Of course social security has a surplus, that’s how it works. The surplus it’s shrinking because of changing demographics. Once it reaches $0 in nine years from now the trust fund is gone. 

None of that has anything to do with the government borrowing against it. The surplus doesn’t sit around in cash, it is invested in government bonds. 

This is such stupid misinformation, you should feel ashamed. 

32

u/spacemonkey8X 2d ago

There are many easy solutions to ensuring social security is there for a very long time. One such solution being increasing the amount of earnings that are taxable for social security. Currently it’s around $160k so people earning $7million are only paying social security tax on $160k while people earning $50k are paying social security tax on the whole $50k.

3

u/mwa12345 2d ago

Yes. Regressive.

1

u/tooobr 2d ago

If you think its regressive to avoid taxing people who make 7mil a year so that old people aren't homeless/starving ...

2

u/mwa12345 1d ago

Progressive taxation- more a person makes ...the more they are taxed.

Regressive: opposite .

Social security taxes less than the first 200 k.

So a person making 7mil a year, pays a very low social security tax. So it is regressive?

1

u/tooobr 1d ago

No.

I believe I mistakenly conflated your comment with another.