Partly.
So what are the positive parts of your reply. Firstly you do admit people are owed.
I will be 60 this year. I am healthy and working full time.
Now you are owed for what you have paid in the past. If you carry on working, that’s not a debt now.
So when you say you can’t tell what’s owed, that’s not the case. It’s quite straightforward. Ask any actuary how to value an annuity [I have to be slightly careful here are there is a difference in meaning between the US variant and the UK variant]. An income for life is the variant I’m talking about.
So how do you value that?
For you at 60, assume you retire at 62. It’s known how the payments increase over time, and we can present value each of those. Turns out its inflation for both and they cancel. Then we need to know the probability you are alive and multiply each cash flow by that. This is simple actuarial maths. Then because its for lots of people something called the central limit theorem kicks in and the amount is known in total with a high degree of certainty.
Turns out that taking income later, you get a higher income, but you’ve lost the payouts, interests on the payouts inbetween. Do you really think the government is offering you a good deal?
That’s exactly what any government requires any pension provider to do. Why shouldn’t the state do the same?
401K - separate issue. That’s a capital backed pension, that you own. It’s wealth. SS is debt.
So no it doesn’t answer it, but I appreciate the attempt.
So let me ask you a question(s)>
Lets assume you know the amount owed, and the same next year so you have the increase, and the rate of increase.
What do those numbers tell you? How can you work out if your pension is safe?
