US Boomer 'Unretires' And Works 7 Days A Week After Struggling With $1,470 Social Security Payments

Supporting her "kids"?? How old are these kids if she's in her 60s and old enough to collect SS?

SS was never designed to totally support us. She had bad luck, perhaps didn't save enough and has family that she cannot afford to be helping but does so anyway. I'm just glad she found part time gigs to help her bit. Maybe she will find some satisfaction from her work.

It's divine will.

Prophetess Ayn Rand, said it must be so.

Your lord and savior orange will halve that sum eventually getting rid of the entitlement entirely.

Seven days a week of work boosted her income by a massive...$600 per month!

$20 per day.

The fuck R2?

Ayn Rand has spoketh.

Except she was also a russian freak who wound up on American welfare in her dotage.

The way this is supposed to resolve itself? She's supposed to be married to a man.

Man will provide.

Not the government.

The article said she wanted to retire at 67 but has to do it at 59 due to an accident. One of her daughters lives at home because she has health issues and she helps the other 2 with groceries. But only $600 for two part time jobs?

Are the repugs going to raise it to 72 in the coming years?

Covid was supposed to take out this demographic

Capitalism isn’t working

[Quote] Ayn Rand has spoketh. Except she was also a russian freak who wound up on American welfare in her dotage.

And was a drug addict

The pukes are getting rid of entitlement programs. To pay for the lowered tax rates of trillionaires.

Do pay attention, dear.

R2 I think one of the suppositions was that the person on SS wasn't paying rent at that point - either because they owned their home in fine Boomer tradition or were living with someone else. Completely crap, of course.

Stand by to see what benefits there are gutted. The GOP has a huge hardon for killing Social Security and Medicare.

The federal minimum wage is unchanged at 7.25 since 2009.

My dad is getting ready to retire at 76, but I’m afraid that he’s going to be one of those people that declines quickly after they retire.

R15 maybe your father could keep working to help out a Unretiree and her 3 adult children?

Why is her social security so low? Did she barely pay in during her working years? Sad. Break a leg, toots.

It continues to work or it gets the suicide pod

You will work until you due and you will not be paid a living wage. You will not own your own home and you will like it.

Her SS payments are also likely low as she probably started collecting the minute she turned 62

R13 My dad taught us early on to never count on Social Security or anyone else other than ourselves. Our own hard work and our own savings. He worked two jobs up until his death at 70. I'm 58 and fully expect SS to be gone by the time I can retire. I'll just keep working like OP if I need to bolster what I have saved.

There are a couple key points in her story that created this situation.

First, at $1470, she's making $300 less than the AVERAGE social security. That's half of the $600 per month she gets from working the other two jobs. It also suggests that during her working life, she was not making a lot to have saved a lot of money in the first place.

She's got an adult child living with her and helps two other adult children. The fact that she's supporting one and giving money to the other two suggests that the three children have probably been siphoning her dry their entire adult lives. She's 67, so it's very possible the kids range anywhere from late 20s to early 40s. Most likely, they're in their 30s. Giving her kids money has also likely drained her meager savings. Isn't the daughter living with her getting some sort of disability?

Finally, the year limit in 2024 before your benefits get reduced was $22,320 - if you're below full retirement age (67). Why is she working weird shifts for only $600 per month. Why not get a 9-5 day job. Even at minimum wage, she'd earn double that amount per month and still be below the cap before her benefits get reduced. Now that she's 67, the cap is also lifted.

I get that she has some health issues, but if she can work two jobs on split shift, it has to be less demanding than even a part-time day job would be.

There is an irony that her social security is just ABOVE the federal poverty limit, likely making her ineligible for other benefits, like SNAP.

Wow I wish my parents supported me. My biggest fear is that it will be the other way around.

Women with low social security payments likely were housewives at some point and didn't contribute to social security for years while not working outside the home.

Her two adult children should be working the extra jobs to support themselves, not their mother. The disabled daughter would receive SSI if the disability is legit and not just a drug/alcohol problem she is calling a disability.

[quote] SS was never designed to totally support us. She had bad luck, perhaps didn't save enough and has family that she cannot afford to be helping but does so anyway. I'm just glad she found part time gigs to help her bit. Maybe she will find some satisfaction from her work.

It was in the early days. It was with the assumption of an intact marriage and that both spouses qualified. If wife was a homemaker it was assumed husband had pension too.

[quote] Covid was supposed to take out this demographic

They're cooking up something stronger this time. Ebola, maybe.

[quote] I'm 58 and fully expect SS to be gone by the time I can retire. I'll just keep working like OP if I need to bolster what I have saved.

It will be there hut not enough to support you. Trump and Co are playing with fire if they think they can cut SS or Medicare. The white welfare queens are his core constituency...and they have guns.

[quote]The disabled daughter would receive SSI if the disability is legit and not just a drug/alcohol problem she is calling a disability.

The daughter also suffers from disabling laziness.

R25, your logic is off by your own statement. SS was designed as a very base supplement, not as a pension.

[quote]You can get Social Security retirement benefits and work at the same time. However, if you are younger than full retirement age and make more than the yearly earnings limit, we will reduce your benefits. Starting with the month you reach full retirement age, we will not reduce your benefits no matter how much you earn.

[quote]We use the following earnings limits to reduce your benefits:

[quote]If you are under full retirement age for the entire year, we deduct $1 from your benefit payments for every $2 you earn above the annual limit. For 2024 that limit is $22,320.

I retired early at took my benefits startying at age 62. A couple years later my old employer to take a work on a project for one year, but the SSA complications were such that they made what seemed an attractive offer too much bother and I declined it. Losing half of the salary above $22K, I didn't see that I would stand to earn much back in the slightly greater annual SSA payments after the fact, or not enough for me to busy myself for a year. Had I needed the money it would have been a different consideration, but yes, it would be difficult to eke by on $1500/mo. with no additional income nevermind multiple people depending on that small sum.

I’m really tired of hearing the same shit every time SS is discussed. Blah blah not supposed to support you blah blah it is disappearing. Stop normalizing the theft of our wages.

TL;DR warning!

Plenty of women are in her shoes -- that's why the retail jobs around here (except at places like Lowe's or Advance Auto) are chock full of old women just trying to get by.

[quote]Why is she working weird shifts for only $600 per month. Why not get a 9-5 day job. Even at minimum wage, she'd earn double that amount per month.

First of all, R22, you don't seem to realize that, in retail, [bold]nobody[/bold] works full-time. If they hired FTers, they'd have to give them benefits, and that ain't never gonna happen. Secondly, it's very difficult to find a job -- any job -- at her age. Just wait until [bold]you[/bold] have to look for one. My bff is looking now (she's 57, her whole dept. was laid off) and she is truly suffering with all the rejection she's getting. And two years ago she completed an online second Master's degree (in addition to her MBA) in Data Science from Northwestern! My heart goes out to her.

As for me, that amount is about what I get for my SS. But I spent the entire decade of my 30s going to college FT, hoping to get my dream job of being a college professor. Alas, I only finished my coursework and written exams before I butted heads with an essential guy on my committee, and that was the end of that. I just didn't have the strength to go on as a starving grad student when I was almost 40.

So I hopped from statistician job (where they all wanted me to "fudge the data" -- I got three of my bosses fired) to adjunct teaching and FT instructor positions at community colleges that they promised me would become tenure-track (which never happened). I was told more than once (not in so many words) to go back in the closet and everything would be OK. Which I didn't do. So they kept not renewing my contract. I'm a political scientist, FFS! Being an out lesbian is relevant to my field (civil rights and all). I often mused, if I were black, would they expect me to hide that too? All this in FL... Thus my sketchy career and another reason for my low SS amount. I too took SS at 62 because I needed the $.

Thus I live on my SS and a small pension from working for the state government "up home" for ten years. The only reason I live as well as I do is because I know how to watch every penny and everything I have, I own. I'm one of the lucky ones.

Rant over.

SL those community college jobs can be such scams. My mother was a nurse at a cc for years and they didn’t pay into SS because they have a state pension, but she was part time so she didn’t qualify for a pension.

But good for you getting your bosses fired for misconduct.

If she's till supporting her "kids". Dumb bitch got what she deserved.

Nobody promised her a Rose garden.

She's not asking for a rose garden, she's asking for her bills to be paid.

R31, how is it theft of wages if you are actually collecting the SS as provided by your wage and work history? Most people actually collect far more SS than they ever paid in deductions. Where do you think that gap is paid from? For the most part, it has been from current workers. The percentage of current working payers is shrinking while the percentage of collectors is increasing. A generational time bomb!

If they do away with SS (as is always threatened by doomers and jerks) before I retire, then my wages that I paid into the system would have been stolen from me.

[quote]Trump and Co are playing with fire if they think they can cut SS or Medicare. The white welfare queens are his core constituency...and they have guns.

Nothing, repeat, nothing would ever cause the MAGA cult to turn on Trump R27. They would still be singing his praises and defending him as he shovelled them into the ovens.

True. If their lord and savior Trump told them to eat cat food to survive, they would gobble it up while forgoing any necessary medications if they thought that "those" people were being made to suffer.

[quote] [R25], your logic is off by your own statement. SS was designed as a very base supplement, not as a pension.

What would you know about 'logic,' dumb bitch! I didn't imply it was intended as a "pension." If a household had sufficient resources such that wife was a homemaker -- i.e. did not work outside the house and had no salary -- it was assumed husband had a job that would provide retirement benefits AND he'd be eligible for social security benefits. If both were low wage workers with no employer-provided retirement benefits, it was intended to keep older people out of the poorhouse. That is the origin and purpose of social security.

I know being low IQ and low information is exalted in some quarters but Datalounge is not one of them. Learn how to read and comprehend. In any case, guesswork is not necessary, you can go right to SSA.gov to get the mission statement for social security benefits.