An Updated “How Bad You’re Getting Screwed by Social Security” Calculator
About 2 years ago, I published an article here at TAH on the above subject. That article dealt with how we might have privatized Social Security in the early 1980s (the proposal was seriously discussed). It also included a downloadble Excel spreadsheet to calculate what benefits a hypothetical “Super IRA” based on individual contributions with mandatory employer matching in the same amounts as your Social Security taxes (the OASD part) would have provided. The assumption was that this “Super IRA” was invested in a hypothetical investment fund tracked the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), much like many mutual funds do today.
The subject came up again yesterday in the comments to this article. So I decided to update the previous spreadsheet with new data. It’s now current through July 2014. File format is Excel 97-2003.
Use it by filling in your own data, then using the links in the prior article on the subject to get an estimate of your possible future Social Security benefits. (If Congress doesn’t reduce or eliminate them before you become eligible for them, of course.) Embedded comments in the spreadsheet should answer most questions.
Be forewarned – if you choose to use the spreadsheet, there’s a good chance you’ll probably be rather . . . . disappointed. Or disgusted.
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Economy
Must we have the dismals before breakfast, Hondo?
Might need a little more logic in your spreadsheet to allow someone to just put in their earnings from the year and then not apply 6.2% to all over it. If you made over the SS taxable amount (say you made 150k) you didnt pay 6.2% on it all.
Not saying you aren’t getting screwed, just sayin’
IllinoisShooter: the embedded comments at the bottom of the “Income-Rate Data” page cover that. They tell anyone using the spreadsheet to enter only the Soc Sec Wage Base amount for any year in which they earned more than that amount. Doing that results in a correct calculation.
I presume users of the spreadsheet can read and comprehend written English.
Thankfully my employer doesn’t contribute to social security. They give us the money in the form of contributions to a mutual fund of our choice with an investment firm. It’s called a supplemental pension. And the money grows quite nicely. I chuckle whenever I get my SS statement that shows lots of zeros.