SSA was originally set up to be like an Annuity. You and your employer contribute from your earnings and those funds would grow exponentially as they would were you to invest them wisely. Then when you reach retirement age you are able to begin drawing from those funds for your expenses of life. BUT the Social Security immediately began paying out retirement funds even though no one had yet contributed to it.
It took FDR’s fourth term of office for him to appoint enough Supreme Court Justices who would not declare it unconstitutional to take money from people who worked and give it to people who were not working.
Many economists have researched to discover that those same funds used to purchase non-risk investments would have yielded much more that what the average person draws out in retirement. Upon the death of the wage earner, any of the remaining funds in the wage earner’s account would have been passed down to the heirs of the estate. With SSA,only minor chlldren and elderly widows who did not earn as much as their husbands receive any of the funds contributed.
With the advent of Social Security, many ceased to plan and save for their own retirement as previous generations had needed to. Now many spend their earnings to the limit without thinking how little they will have to live on when they are no longer able to work.
Richard Nixon took the funds from Social Security which had previously been held in a separate account and had them go directly into the United States government’s General Fund. Many people die without ever drawing from their Social Security. What happens to that money?
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