werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
- 463
- 126
Actually, I don't think there's a problem. I've bolded the two factors that I didn't include in my own calculation.
The original comment I responded to concerned how long it took a wage earner to get paid back his own contributions. So the employer contribution wouldn't properly be considered for that calculation. That alone cuts the payback time above in half - to 9.4 years.
The other factor - accrued interest that the wage-earner WOULD have collected had he kept his money rather than paying it in SS taxes - is a totally valid consideration: When I pay a dollar into SS in 1970, it's going to be a lot more dollars in 2009. However, the original comment said, "How long does it take to get back the dollars you pay into SS?" I took that literally, and my simple-minded calculation yielded 8 years for my own worst-case situation.
The employer "contribution" is certainly your money, it's part of what your employer pays to employ you just as your employer-furnished health insurance is part of your compensation. (If you doubt this look at the self-employed, who pay both parts.) It gets paid to the government rather than to you, but then so does your "contribution". Politicians just broke it up to make you think you were being charged less. All of these costs - the employer "contribution" to Medicare/Medicaid, unemployment insurance, worker's comp - are parts of our compensation, it's just that the government seizes these parts of it to spend for us because we're such inept, simple things.