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Social Security can be saved. Scrap the cap!
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Social Security is financed through a dedicated payroll tax.
It is a tax. That is a fact. That sentence is literally from the social security website https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/press/how-is-social-security-financed.html as of August 15th 2026.
Unlike most other taxes, you only benefit from social security if you've paid into it. And the amount you receive is proportional to the amount you put in. Practically, it's far closer to a retirement account or pension than a tax.
So, yes, let's move the goal posts! I'm all for that.
Social security is not a retirement fund.
If I have an actual retirement fund that I contribute to every month for my entire adult life, and I die the year before I retire, the entirety of that retirement fund goes into my estate. It is ultimately bequeathed to my legal heirs.
If I die a year before collecting social security, my heirs will get nothing of what I paid in. The government keeps that money, and pays it out to other social security beneficiaries. (I am not married, and my children are over 19 and not disabled.)
A pension, maybe, but Social Security is in no way comparable to a retirement fund.
By that logic, a pension is in no way comparable to a retirement fund, which is a rediculous statement that no one would agree with.
A pension also means different things depending on where you are.
In my country, your pension comes from multiple parts. The national pension has a "citizens pension" portion that everyone gets, then the next bit depends on how many years you worked. Then there's something that's sort of our equivalent of a 401k and that's called a voluntary pension fund.
I'd never heard of a pension being paid by your employer until I started hanging out online. Seemed ridiculous, as they could just go out of business or something.
A pension is not a retirement fund either, from the perspective of the worker and the worker's family. A pension is paid to the worker for the remainder of the worker's life, regardless of the amount the worker has paid into the fund. If they put in 20 years worth of payments and live 40 years, they collect 40 years of payments. If they live only two months, they only collect two months of payments.
I would agree that social security is comparable to a pension or retirement insurance, in that the payout is not necessarily commensurate with the pay-in.
A 401k is a fund. If the worker puts in 20 years of payments, and only lives two months, the worker's heirs receive 19 years and 10 months worth of payments.
401ks directly replaced pensions for most Americans. It's disingenuous to claim they're "in no way comparable."
Yeah? Cars replaced horses for most Americans.
The mechanism of operation is so different that they cannot be considered the same thing. Even though they are used for similar purposes, they are not reasonably comparable.