[careinke]

My understanding was that UBI would be paid in lieu of any other benefits. So all the various FEDERAL housing and assistance and food programs would go away. That money would instead go to the UBI program putting thousands of Federal workers out of work, and saving their salary.

Is this not so?

As Pelosi has been known to say "You have to pass the bill to find out what is in the bill".

This is why I want the UBI to be twice the poverty level. If your not poor, why should the government have poverty programs? They can all go away. A couple with two kids could afford for one parent to stay home and apply real "Home Economics" further strengthening their position, and not just economically.

[vtsnowedin]

My understanding was that UBI would be paid in lieu of any other benefits. So all the various FEDERAL housing and assistance and food programs would go away. That money would instead go to the UBI program putting thousands of Federal workers out of work, and saving their salary.

Is this not so?

As Pelosi has been known to say "You have to pass the bill to find out what is in the bill".

This is why I want the UBI to be twice the poverty level. If your not poor, why should the government have poverty programs? They can all go away. A couple with two kids could afford for one parent to stay home and apply real "Home Economics" further strengthening their position, and not just economically.

Consider that the poverty level for a single person is $12,760 with $4,480 added on for each additional family member. Then add in the median expenditure for adults of $6100 per enrolled and $3800/ child enrolled. (it varies a lot from state to state).
So a family of four on medicaid is already getting $46,000 in benefits. If your UBI for that family was twice the poverty rate not counting healthcare they would get $52,400 or $1008/week tax free but would be in the private insurance market. The median cost of a family plan last year was $20,976 or $404 a week not counting deductibles which are significant.

[Newfie]

I'm more familiar with the Canadian context though I'm sure the same question applies to the US. We have the situation where someone transitioning from welfare to a minimum or slightly better than minimum wage job faces a higher effective marginal tax rate than high income earners when you factor in the loss of free benefits such as dental care, vision care, etc. provided to welfare recipients.

I have run into that here by exceeding the earnings limit for social security. For every dollar over the limit they take back fifty cents of your benefit and that income is still taxable so my tax rate on that excess income is on the order of 62.5 percent.
I wont have that problem this year .

VT,

My understanding is a bit more complicated. Everything you said above is true. What you miss, and is not widely known, is that money they “take back” is still allocated to you, it just goes back into your accounting for later dispersement. So you don’t “loose it”, it’s out away for your later use. And yes to everything you say about taxes.

Don’t trust me on this. I’m 98% sure I’m right, but you should do your own homework if it matters to you.

[vtsnowedin]

They say that they put the money back into your account but as far as I have found the only way your monthly payment can increase is if you stop taking payments for a whole year and earn more then any prior year you worked. It is not like you have a balance sheet that will run dry at some point and your payout is determined based on your highest years income and ss tax payments.

[Newfie]

That’s correct, but they keep a running tab of what you have drawn out.

If you retire early you get fewer $/month. We f you retire later more. But they have some theoretical age they are working against, something like 82, I don’t recall exactly.

If you retire early and live beyond 82 you loose. If you retire late and live beyond 82 you win.

82, or whatever the magic number is, is the break even point. So if you work and they recover some money from you it will all come back To you, provided you live to 82.

Speaking of which I haven’t seen any discussion of how much impact Covid is having on SS.

[vtsnowedin]

We better watch it or Tanada will merge this over on some old Social security discussion.
My math says the break even point is 78 plus or minus a month or two depending on your birth year. Going at 62 you take a 25.8 percent reduction but you get 50 of those reduced checks before you reach 66+2 months. They calculate your payment on your highest 35 years based on inflation adjusted earnings. So all the taxes you paid in before 27 years of age got you nothing. Also my wife gets nothing for all the taxes she has paid in as she can get half my amount without having worked a day and taking breaks to raise our children she has as is typical made a bit less then half my earnings.
Every working woman in the country should be up in arms about this. Are they not smart enough to realize the rip off.

[Tanada]

That’s correct, but they keep a running tab of what you have drawn out.

If you retire early you get fewer $/month. We f you retire later more. But they have some theoretical age they are working against, something like 82, I don’t recall exactly.

If you retire early and live beyond 82 you loose. If you retire late and live beyond 82 you win.

82, or whatever the magic number is, is the break even point. So if you work and they recover some money from you it will all come back To you, provided you live to 82.

Speaking of which I haven’t seen any discussion of how much impact Covid is having on SS.

I believe you have that one backward Newfie. If you retire early and live past the average break even age you get out more than you put in, if you retire late and live past the average break even point you have to live a couple additional years just to get back everything you put in, let alone get out any extra. My dad for example worked until he was 66 to get coverage for his new third wife as he had to be married two full years for her to become a beneficiary of his funds. She ended up dying first so ultimately it didn't matter in terms of benefit to her. He then lived on to the ripe age of 85 before he passed and as a result he functionally drew more out of the SSI system than he had put in in terms of principal. On the other side of the coin if he had been putting those SSI funds into a savings account instead not only would he have accumulated all the interest from age 18 on to 66, he would have also left behind the unspent principal for his descendants.

Fundamentally SSI is no different than any pyramid scheme because people paying in today are what funds people taking out today. Any lack of money coming in is made up for by the Feds taking out loans which causes inflationary pressure reducing the value of any money you hold as cash. If the system were honest your finds would actually go into an account in your name at interest and you would be credited both principal and interest and it would be inheritable. The way the system is set up however you and your employer pay into the system and the government treats that money as an interest free loan to the government only returnable if you become a qualified disability or make it to retirement age. IOW it is simply a tax with theoretical benefits if you manage to live long enough to make it to retirement age.

In point of fact when the system was created in the late 1930's the average African American died at age 59 if they managed to survive to adulthood and the average European American lived to 63. This meant that for African Americans to even qualify for early retirement at 62 was uncommon and for European Americans to get "full retirement" at 65 was nearly as uncommon. For the first few years it wasn't that bad of a deal because the people reaching 62 or 65 to retire had only been paying in for about 5 years so even if they lived a year or two they got everything back. However as life expectancy climbed in the 1960-2000 period be a substantial number of years and given that people retiring after 1965 had been paying in for about 30 years with that number growing every year the deal got much more complex. Our financial advisors revealed to us that retiring early if you have any type of major health issue like Diabetes, COPD or Heart Disease is definitely to your benefit because statistically you are not going to live until the break even point if you put off retirement waiting for full benefits. By 2022 you will have to reach 68 to receive full benefits but you still get partial at 62. That six years of partial benefits adds up to a significant sum, and a large share of your total if you only live to 70 as most people with serious health conditions do.

[vtsnowedin]

Our financial advisors revealed to us that retiring early if you have any type of major health issue like Diabetes, COPD or Heart Disease is definitely to your benefit because statistically you are not going to live until the break even point if you put off retirement waiting for full benefits. By 2022 you will have to reach 68 to receive full benefits but you still get partial at 62. That six years of partial benefits adds up to a significant sum, and a large share of your total if you only live to 70 as most people with serious health conditions do.

I would add that anybody that is a smoker or has been for any length of time should really consider going at 62. You can make a bit more then $18k this year and that added to your social security checks can make most of us comfortable, or at least as comfortable as we ever were, and depending on the job and rate of pay might give you a few months off every year. In my own case I could only work 500 hours which is about three months.
I know of a couple of people that hung on too long and then died before even the second check cleared.
On a side note notice how when they are howling about the post office cut backs they say people wont get their SS checks? All SS payments have been by direct deposit for years now.

[Outcast_Searcher]

On a side note notice how when they are howling about the post office cut backs they say people wont get their SS checks? All SS payments have been by direct deposit for years now.

According to Fox News, the right wing mouthpiece, only 99.8% of SS recipients receive their checks by mail.

So if that's true (and Fox News would NEVER misstate anything, right? ) then for the 1.2% of people getting their SS payments by mail, WOULD potentially be impacted.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/usps-social-security-checks

When the GOP news contradicts your GOP misdirection, maybe you should try something else.

Now, if you have credible links to show this is incorrect, please provide them, since you didn't bother to back up your claim in any way. Do you CHECK such claims before you make them?

And who are "they" btw? Fox News? There is left leaning news in addition to Fox News.

...

By the way, when I try to cross check with more objective news sources, I'm told SS checks (paper checks) stopped being sent in 20013. That's consistent with my memory (not the specific date, but the concept and the rough timeframe).

https://apnews.com/afs:Content:9273880035

Looking at the SSA website, it seems to be ambiguous. Is this due to government incompetence, slowness, and failure to follow through on the mandate to get checks deposited? Or that big government can't get around to actually updating their website every 7 years? Or something else? Kind of sad how hard it is to get a simple straight answer from what SHOULD BE the source.

https://www.ssa.gov/deposit/

[vtsnowedin]

On a side note notice how when they are howling about the post office cut backs they say people wont get their SS checks? All SS payments have been by direct deposit for years now.

According to Fox News, the right wing mouthpiece, only 99.8% of SS recipients receive their checks by mail.

So if that's true (and Fox News would NEVER misstate anything, right? ) then for the 1.2% of people getting their SS payments by mail, WOULD potentially be impacted.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/usps-social-security-checks

When the GOP news contradicts your GOP misdirection, maybe you should try something else.

Now, if you have credible links to show this is incorrect, please provide them, since you didn't bother to back up your claim in any way. Do you CHECK such claims before you make them?

And who are "they" btw? Fox News? There is left leaning news in addition to Fox News.

...

By the way, when I try to cross check with more objective news sources, I'm told SS checks (paper checks) stopped being sent in 20013. That's consistent with my memory (not the specific date, but the concept and the rough timeframe).

https://apnews.com/afs:Content:9273880035

Looking at the SSA website, it seems to be ambiguous. Is this due to government incompetence, slowness, and failure to follow through on the mandate to get checks deposited? Or that big government can't get around to actually updating their website every 7 years? Or something else? Kind of sad how hard it is to get a simple straight answer from what SHOULD BE the source.

https://www.ssa.gov/deposit/

You are being a total A$$ Hole here. Your link is from years ago during the transition. Nobody today gets their check in the mail.

[Newfie]

Outcast

Copy and paste from that link.

More than 71 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries, or 98.8% of total Social Security and SSI beneficiaries, receive their payments "electronically per month," a Social Security Administration spokesperson told Fox News.


The administration "mails nearly 850,000 paper checks (1.2 percent) per month. The electronic payments consist of direct deposit and Direct Express debit cards," the spokesperson said.

[Newfie]

Tanada,

OK, that’s not quite how I understand it but I was wrong once before. I do agree with most of what you wrote and surely am not willing to argue over the small balance.

It doesn’t matter to me because my decision has been made, I retired at 65. And am loving it.

Like I said, you need to do your own homework.

[vtsnowedin]

Posting links without dates on them proves nothing. Find a link with dates to this year and then I will pay attention.

[vtsnowedin]

This from the federal website should settle the mailed checks issue.

If you apply for Social Security or Supplemental Security Income benefits, a new law went into effect March 1, 2013, [i]requiring[/i] that you receive your payments electronically. If you did not sign up for electronic payments when you applied for benefits, we strongly urge you to do it now.

[Outcast_Searcher]

This from the federal website should settle the mailed checks issue.

If you apply for Social Security or Supplemental Security Income benefits, a new law went into effect March 1, 2013, [i]requiring[/i] that you receive your payments electronically. If you did not sign up for electronic payments when you applied for benefits, we strongly urge you to do it now.

WTH are you talking about. AS IF a website / government agency saying "we strongly urge you" equates to reality.

Meanwhile, vs. me posting credible links, you have nothing but BS. Ok then.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Outcast

Copy and paste from that link.

More than 71 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries, or 98.8% of total Social Security and SSI beneficiaries, receive their payments "electronically per month," a Social Security Administration spokesperson told Fox News.


The administration "mails nearly 850,000 paper checks (1.2 percent) per month. The electronic payments consist of direct deposit and Direct Express debit cards," the spokesperson said.

So what's your point? That you're agreeing with me that the Dem's point that there ARE still SS recipients via mail, and that therefore messing up the USPS might impact them?

If so, thanks for backing me up. If not, what's your point?

[vtsnowedin]

What part of required do you not understand? Any link that says they are still mailing out some checks is out of date. Why would anyone want to get it in the mail anyway? The first thing you have to do is go to the bank to cash it.

[Outcast_Searcher]

What part of required do you not understand? Any link that says they are still mailing out some checks is out of date. Why would anyone want to get it in the mail anyway? The first thing you have to do is go to the bank to cash it.

What part of saying "required" doesn't mean 100% effective OR strictly enforced don't YOU understand, especially when it comes to big US government?

So go ahead, tell me how WELL OVER TEN MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS in the US being not only tolerated, but given all kinds of breaks re not needing to be able to speak English, re liberals refusing to even make English the official US language, re being able to get jobs, bank accounts, various benefits, not being deported, etc. makes you think that language saying "required" means a DAMN THING re 100% actual effectiveness, re keeping illegal aliens who are NOT allowed to take residence in the US out? (Or any OTHER law or rule the left would deem "unfair").

As a right winger, I'm rather surprised how detached from reality you are to that idea.

And for the logic, just think about how the left portrays attempts to prevent voter ID laws. Why, it's so "UNFAIR" to require people to have voter ID! They just couldn't possibly DO that, yadda yadda. So just think how much screeching there would be if some old people didn't get their social security check because a mean old government agency enforced a 7 year old "requirement".

And meanwhile, with your favored Fox News saying how many people ARE getting the benefit by mail, you STILL haven't shown credible links proving they're not.

[vtsnowedin]

I started getting Social security checks in 2017, by direct deposit as I was not given any option to receive them by mail. That has nothing to do with illegal aliens and other failings of the federal government. So I am speaking from experience and I don't know where you get your ideas from. Find a person that still gets theirs by mail and let me talk to them and I will change my position. But the law is clear reguardless of anything you have seen on Fox news or MSNBC.

[Newfie]

Outcast

Copy and paste from that link.

More than 71 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries, or 98.8% of total Social Security and SSI beneficiaries, receive their payments "electronically per month," a Social Security Administration spokesperson told Fox News.


The administration "mails nearly 850,000 paper checks (1.2 percent) per month. The electronic payments consist of direct deposit and Direct Express debit cards," the spokesperson said.

So what's your point? That you're agreeing with me that the Dem's point that there ARE still SS recipients via mail, and that therefore messing up the USPS might impact them?

If so, thanks for backing me up. If not, what's your point?

OUTCAST;

Slow down and reread your initial post, you transposed the numbers.

Outcast wrote:

According to Fox News, the right wing mouthpiece, only 99.8% of SS recipients receive their checks by mail.

Fox wrote:

More than 71 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries, or 98.8% of total Social Security and SSI beneficiaries, receive their payments "electronically per month,"

Out - Fox said 99.8% by mail
Fox - SSI said 98.8% direct deposit