You mean you can collect your welfare checks and not even live in the U.S.?

For Budman --

Oh yes. You don't even need to be a US citizen!

We have an old friend of the family, a Swiss woman who was married to an American. He died about 50 years ago, but she's still collecting on his SS -- in Zurich.

If you're entitled, then your address doesn't matter.

s

Budman
I love Social Security. I'm old enough to collect, before the politicians kill this program.

Welfare via European transfers will be strange but why not. If it runs to this, I'll sign up.

Blackduff

She can always open a bank account with her local American Express.
When my DH had to go to an isolate tour, I went back to Rome for 15 months and stayed with my children at my parents' house.
I just opened an account with AMEX and never had any problems.
At the end of my stay, I closed my account and received the moneys left in the bank in Dollars.

"You mean you can collect your welfare checks and not even live in the U.S.?"

Social Security is not welfare! Even Bill Gates will be entitled to SS when he reaches retirement age.

Heimdall, it all depends upon your perspective -- it might as well be. The system is broken, and the politicians won't fix it. What do they care, they're not tied to it.

And Bill Gates could care less.

Adding on to Budman's comments about SS being broken but from the perspective of a 26-yr-old.

DH and I, both CPAs, have set up our retirement plan expecting to receive zero, zip, nada from SS. We consider it just another tax we pay for which we'll receive no benefits. The system as it stands now is hopelessly broken and I've yet to have anyone with "economic knowledge credibility" tell me I'll actually get anything back from it.

The system is not broken. The program has worked. Social Security will continue to thrive if only the politicians and the govt. keep their paws of the general fund. Too many con artists have "borrowed" from the fund to pay for other "important" priorities. Every President after FDR has collected retirement checks, it is an honest and worthwhile project. It should not be trampled by politicians or misinformed individuals.

Hi elba,

I'd very much like to think you are right. However someone, someday has to pay for our massive deficit and program shortfalls (medicare looks to have the potential of being much worse than SS), and most experts seem to agree that it will be my generation.

I'll just be pleasantly surprised if I ever get a dime from SS, but will stick to my plan for comfortable retirement without counting on it.

I agree with you. We have to straighten our house and pay our bills. What we cannot afford is to do it partly by stealing from a fund that support millions of hard-working americans.

It's amazing to me to realize that 6 years ago, this country had absolutely no deficit whatsoever, in fact, there was a surplus of some 200 BILLION dollars. The changes that can be wrought in such a relatively brief period of time...

The Social Security program was designed to supplement your retirement income. It was never conceived to be your only means of support.

I will get off my soap box now, and go back to my usual happy-go-lucky traveler mode. Sorry to get so hot and bothered.

Not to mention "creative accounting" which would land all of us in Federal prison.
Can't wait to apply next month for my maximum 35 year "monthly reimbursements" from SSC.
M

Elba is correct. It's a supplement paid into by employers & employees. It's not a welfare check but unfortunately people have collected from it who have never paid into it.

People in their 20's & 30's are fortunate that they have the retirement plan opportunities with tax benefits that previous generations didn't have or only got later on.

I wrote my greedy,lard-butt senator over thirty years ago and asked to be exempt from paying SS taxes, saying the government could just deposit the taxes (minus a small portion for disability insurance)in a T-bill account and then give me the balance when I reached 65.

I got a form letter back saying not to worry, the government would take care of me.

Right - based on what my employers and I have paid in, I'd be a very, very rich man if that private account had been allowed. I would also have the freedom to pass on those funds to my kids.

Now I can only expect 1500 a month and have to pay taxes on it! And if I die after my LW, my grown kids get nothing!

Do the math and you get real angry at those clowns in D.C.

Carrybean,
As far as I know, the only folks legally receiving benefits who "never contributed" are the spouses who stayed home with the kids.
I rather think they did their share.
M

I agree on those folks, Mike but aren't there alcoholics & drug addicts receiving SS disability? I thought I had read where newcomers to the US who were older were also getting it (might be wrong on that part.)

I think this thread might "go south" so I'll bow out of it now.

There are two different programs handled by Social Security

Social Security - for any person that has worked at least 10 years and contributed to the fund and is insured.

SSI - a welfare program for the aged and disabled that are not insured. They must be americans to receive any funds.

degas is right, again!!!

Politicians would lead you to believe that Social Security is the wherewithal and greatest thing since sliced bread, and they are going to make sure that it's there for everyone (except them -- they don't contribute to this welfare program).

The social security system is nothing more than a welfare system that has outlived its usefulness. It may have been a great concept 60-70 years ago, but times have changed and the system needs to be reformed.

My pet peeve is AARP lobbied against reform because it was "too risky" for its seniors to invest in the stock market -- even though it was a "voluntary" program. Now, AARP is selling mutual funds to its members. The hypocrisy stinks.