In the Oct. 27 edition of The Epoch Times, a letter appeared in “The Reader’s Turn” from an individual who claimed that he would never receive the full amount of his contribution from Social Security. That didn’t seem correct to me from my experience, so I checked my old Social Security statements of benefits and estimated whether his claim was close to being correct. (I do not have data for all years.) I won’t claim to speak for everyone, but the figures I noted from the statements of just 12 of the 19 years I’ve been retired reflect something vastly different. When I retired, the first statement said that I had paid a total of $80,419 into the system. (My employers contributed an additional $86,725.) I added up the monthly income payments from Social Security and the total was more than $302,000. And this did not include all the years that I received Social Security payments. Using data for the same years, I calculated that $98,014 was also withheld for income tax purposes. It would be beneficial if a more qualified individual would compare a variety of scenarios over a wide range of incomes to see if this or a similar difference exists. I believe that most, if not all, folks who receive Social Security income realize a lot more than they have contributed. This would also be one reason why the “Trust Fund” is being depleted so quickly.
Frank D’Ascensio
Pennsylvania
