My Social Security dilemma and how the ordinary person gets screwed.

[Cleita]

I took social security at 62. As care giver to my late husband, it was like a full time job without pay and I couldn't work until I was 65 and take care of him too. Today I'm almost pushing seventy and I got a job at the beginning of the year with a young doctor who is starting a practice. It's extra money for me that I need. However, he pays me as contract labor since I'm on call and only go in to the office when he has patients. So this is how the poor get nickeled and dimed. I have to pay 15% to social security, regardless, as a contract worker. Also, if I earn too much money in a month Social Security takes back $1 for every $3 earned. Of course Donald Trump only pays social security on his first $106,000 of earnings as does Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

Now I don't want to go on salary unless the job becomes full time, because then I will be also paying SDI to the state and federal withholding. However, that money, which is nothing compared to the trillions being spent by our failed banks and Wall street hedge fund managers helps keep me in my prescription drugs, pays for car repairs and other extras social security and a small pension I get doesn't cover. I'm not complaining because I feel fortunate compared to other people my age who are in really dire straits. It seems though that, we down at the bottom of the economic scale should not be shouldering what seems like the majority of the burden of running this country.

[Debi]

1. If you don't mind my asking

how old are you now? I thought the cap came off of earnings @ 66.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. You're right. There is no penalty after one reaches the month of their full retirement age.

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10063.html#limits
"Starting with the month that you reach full retirement age, you can get your full benefits no matter how much you earn."

[Cleita]

5. Thanks I didn't know this. When my husband retired and worked for a few

months after he had taken benefits at 65, he was penalized. I guess they changed that. Good.

[Cleita]

6. I'll be seventy next February. n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Being contract labor means you're self-employed. So your rate is 15%. That's both

SS and Medicare combined. As a wage employee, it would be half that much.

[Cleita]

8. I guess I will have to accept the fact that I will be paying $15 into every

$100 I earn. I don't work enough in a month really to become salaried. It's a lot of extra paper work and forms that have to be filed for this fledgling practice.

[Debi]

11. But it could lower the amount of taxes you are paying

and that's worth a few hours of paperwork isn't it?

[CC]

3. The cap on earnings comes off at 66 so they

should not be taking money away from you for earning if you are over 66. Also yes you pay more in as you work but it can also increase your benefit amount as you add more to your lifetime earnings. It might be worth your time to go to SSA.gov and read through the information there if you are going to base your work on the effect it will have on SS benefits.

[WeDidIt]

7. There is a three word solution to the Social Security solvency issue

(1) Remove
(2) The
(3) Cap

[Cleita]

9. I agree with that. Also, those on the bottom of the earnings scale shouldn't

have to pay into it until they are getting a living wage. The cap should be reversed IMHO.

[truedelphi]

16. Been wondering where you are lately. Sorry to hear of your

Plight, and glad that others here were able to clue you in about how you keep your salary once you turn 66 or so.

I hate the fact that poor people are forced to pay into Social Secuirity - with it taking needed dollars out of their lives. Shoul danyone who cannot feed themselves 30 days out of th emonth be forced to save for their old age? that is a good way to end up with nutritionally caused health difficulties. NO ONE WHO HAS NO HEALTH INSURANCE SHOULD BE FORCED TO PAY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY UNTIL THEY HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE! When I was younger, I could have afforded health inusrance if I wasn't required to pay Social Security.

I am ten years younger than you - and I don't think I will live long enough to see Social Security.
And if I do, the Powers that be will probably think of a way to dissolve it.

Chris Rock does a great rant on how Black men should qualify for Social Security at the age of 29 - He bases the skit on an actuarial fact that unless it starts early for black men, that is about the only way many would see the seven years of it (or much more) that most white people get.

[Debi]

10. Or at the very least raise it. n/t

[Yupster]

19. I have two easy solutions

1. Remove the cap.

2. Make the universal program universal by making non-social security workers join the system.

Those two changes would help tremendously and are fair anyway.

[RebelOne]

12. I am working full-time and am also collecting social security

and getting full benefits. But, I have to pay taxes at the end of the year. This year, it was almost $2,000.

[Debi]

13. Do you have your taxes taken out of your Social Security check?

If not that could be why.

[Hannah Bell]

15. income taxes?

[Wednesdays]

14. K&R

:kick:

[nichomachus]

17. This is bullshit -- absolute bullshit

If you are "pushing 70" you can make as much as you want and the government doesn't take anything back.

Please go troll somewhere else -- or get your facts straight when you troll here.

I know because I'm not even near 70 and I can make as much as I want without pena;ty.

[Cleita]

18. Sorry I wasn't aware that they changed the ruling.

When my husband worked after turning 65 and collecting SS, he had to return a portion of his SS. I though the law was the same today. Previous posters have set me straight in much more politer words than yours.