Has anyone [in the U.S.] received your stimulus check? How are you going to spend it?

[Piotrsko]

Originally Posted by JSH

Care to explain what a Social Security stipend is?

It is a small sum calculated to enable a recipient to scrape by the remaining years of their life in relative poverty. Otherwise about 1500 a month, a princely sum if you have no disease or monthly payments

[Xist]

Normally this is just called Social Security, right? I have never heard someone mention the stipend, they just say "Social Security."

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

Normally this is just called Social Security, right? I have never heard someone mention the stipend, they just say "Social Security."

Stipend is just fixed income. If a person works a salary job and gets an unchanging amount of pay on a regular basis, that's a stipend.

It's a more accurate way to describe a distribution from SS, because SS isn't the stipend, it's the government program that taxes income earning citizens to pay the retired/disabled citizens.

[freebeard]

Normally this is just called Social Security, right?

Y B normal?

[redpoint5]

freebeard tested AB normal.

[freebeard]

Fishing for my blood type? Nice try.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by freebeard

The eagle poops on the third Wednesday every month.

So Social Security. I think you threw me off why claiming to be attempting to avoid government agencies. Living on a government check doesn't seem to achieve that goal.

While Social Security is a great program it isn't really applicable to my generation and younger. While I believe it will still be around in some form or another it seems irresponsible to base one's retirement on an unknown. Anything that it pays will be considered a happy bonus. As our generation doesn't have pensions we need to do the saving ourselves if we want anything near the retirement our parents enjoyed.

Hence the need for investing if one wants to leave the rat race after a reasonable number of years. 30 years and out used to be pretty standard, my wife and I are shooting for 25 and out.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

While Social Security is a great program it isn't really applicable to my generation and younger. While I believe it will still be around in some form or another it seems irresponsible to base one's retirement on an unknown. Anything that it pays will be considered a happy bonus. As our generation doesn't have pensions we need to do the saving ourselves if we want anything near the retirement our parents enjoyed.

Hence the need for investing if one wants to leave the rat race after a reasonable number of years. 30 years and out used to be pretty standard, my wife and I are shooting for 25 and out.

I've said it before, but I'd be happy to forfeit all contributions thus far and get zero SS benefits in the future in exchange for paying nothing into it going forward.

We're living longer than in times past, which creates a new problem. In the past, family would support the elderly the few years until they die. Now that retirement is 1/3 of a lifetime, that becomes a much greater burden.

SS should be an opt in program. What business is it of the governments to force one to set aside retirement savings at essentially zero percent interest or less?

[freebeard]

JSH — Good for you. Too late for me. If I'd done a same day sale of my Symantec stock (when they cut me loose) for Apple stock and held it for ten years, I'd have a different result today.

I agree being on SS isn't being a child of God, but thankfully it was mandatory. I ran behind most of my working career, and didn't shift my attitudes to take advantage of the opportunities (IRAs, etc.).

OTOH I was living in a geodesic dome then and I have a collectible 'Airstream' tiny house now, so... no complaint. I'm just happy to be here.

redpoint5 — Let's make robots pay into Social Security. Problem solved.

[Xist]

Can I get robots to tell me that I am wrong, but logically, constructively, and dispassionately, to make me a better carbon-based lifeform?