Looks like Social Security is an effective subsidy for Traditional Households

[cthulu2016]

This observation has no agenda. My personal view is to defend benefit levels for SS for as long as that can possibly be done, which should be a long, long with proper planning. I was looking at some numbers and was interested in them and thought that others might be also.

One-income households get back (on average) a lot more than was paid into Social Security. All other households get back less than they paid. The system is set up so that every working person pays a surplus to fund pensions for non-working married people. (A single earner spouse pays the same surplus, but it comes back to his or her household.)

For folks retiring next year (2014) a single-earner household is expected to get back about 137% of what was paid in. (Inflation adjusted dollars) A single male, only 68%. Single Female, 75%. (Women live longer) And the modern two-income household, 77%.

http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/social-security/ (page 1/2)

So the program is a huge subsidy for stay-at-home moms, specifically, and thus... punch-line... a boon to the well-to-do. (How much money a household has is surely one factor in whether both people work, and higher income people live longer, and women live longer.)

It is also a necessary thing, of course. Widows who did not work outside the home need as much money to get by as anyone else.

And this isn't a knock on social security, in particular. Pretty much every other aspect of government drives money to traditional households also. The government considers itself to have an active role in organizing society to favor traditional households. And of course anything favors the well-to-do... that seems to be a law of physics.

But I was surprised how stark it is... everybody loses except one-income households.

This is precisely the sort of thing that makes marriage equality so pointed—the whole freaking society is set up to reward Harry and Harriet Homeowner and probably isn't going to do away with married privilege any time soon, so that privileged status that should be open to all.

Anyway... as is often the case, the things Republicans oppose are things they benefit more from on average. To everyone upset about "the takers"... they are suburban widows.

[liberal N proud]

1. DUh!

[surrealAmerican]

2. I'm not sure I'm following this.

When you're talking about widows, that means they had a spouse who paid in, but is not collecting social security. The system certainly does benefit from people who pay in, but die before collecting benefits. It needs to to balance out people who live longer than average.

[DURHAM D]

5. Maybe this will help.

Upon retirement of the single earner in a household they become double recipients.

A couple goes from one pay check to two SS checks.

A non-working spouse receives a SS for one-half the amount of the earner's SS check.

The maximum possible SS check right now is about $2500. So if the working spouse receives $2500 the non-working spouse will receive $1250. Thus bringing the SS income for the home to $3,750 a month.


Obviously SS benefits favor couples with just one working spouse.

[Dorn]

3. Social Security Disability INSURANCE

Remember that 'social security' is an insurance program and remember that it was Reagan who lumped it into the federal budget. It should be totally separate from the US Federal budget -- imagine an insurance company deciding to reduce the amount they had agreed to insure. It is normal that insurance is not a savings plan so differences in payouts are expected and understood.

It drives me nuts when people call it 'entitlement'... repeat after me : INSURANCE INSURANCE INSURANCE.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. As boons for the well to do go, SS stinks. Anyone with a bit of extra income pays taxes on SS

The 'well to do' will be paying regular income taxes in retirement and 85% of their SS will be taxed. So the maximum benefit for those taking SS this year is $2,513. 30K a year of which $3,200 is protected from income taxes, the rest is taxed just like any other income, just like your income. This is perhaps 'boon level' for middle class folks, but for the 'well to do' we are talking about a small portion of their income, median US household income is about 44K currently, to be 'well to do' has to be at least twice the middle, so lets say 88k. Of which 30K comes from SSA. 58 does not.
I'm probably going on about this because the OP writes so may words whining about 'traditional families' without really mentioning that ONLY straight, married couples are counted as 'traditional'. Swingers who swap partners in their private orgy room while the kids are at taxidermy class are 'traditional couples' because this word 'traditional' actually means 'straight'. All straight couples are treated exactly the same, and no same sex couples are afforded any measure of that treatment the rest of you take for granted so deeply that you spend time arguing about who gets the most of it among yourselves without mention of your other neighbors who get shafted entirely. The 'traditional' people act as if we do not exist, and entire world is made of straight couples, who get cheesed off that some other straight couples make more money.
Traditional couples, like the Vitters, like the Patereauss, Ensigns, Edwards. Wholesome adultery!! Traditional lying, cheating and hypocrisy!!!!

The OP's complaint, really, is about the bigoted way this system treats those who are not heterosexual marrieds sadly the OP seems to place the blame on the specific program rather than upon the double standard and discrimination. The same injustices exist under tax law, immigration law, you name it, the discrimination is inherent in all systems run by the straight American majority, all of them, all of them. The tax area being the worst of all. I wish heterosexual Americans would stop accepting that, stop refusing to admit it, and at least make a try at correcting it before they start in on rants that some suburban widow gets too much in benefit, because that is NOT the problem. Cutting that widow's mite will not correct the injustices imposed on 'non traditional' families.
I hate being called non traditional when we are staid and bookish, so many of my straight married friends are hedonists with ways of living one could call 'outlandish' or 'extreme' or even 'morally complex'. A straight couple declares that they are an 'open marriage' with several additional partners each year, they are 'traditional'. Because 'tradition' means 'heterosexuality in any form'.

[cthulu2016]

6. re: "the OP seems to place the blame on the specific program"

from the OP:

"And this isn't a knock on social security, in particular. Pretty much every other aspect of government drives money to traditional households also. The government considers itself to have an active role in organizing society to favor traditional households."