Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, this Chamber passed the bill. It has languished over in the Senate. With the Vice President's help, I am sure we could get it through the Senate Chamber. The diminishing return of your Social Security investment. The average Social Security taxpayer will receive a 1.9 percent interest rate, real interest rate return, on what that worker and their employer, or, if they are self-employed, what they pay into Social Security. So the average worker is not going to live long enough, even though our life spans are substantially increasing, to get back what they have paid in in Social Security tax. So that is part of the problem, is getting a better return on that investment. The real return on Social Security is 1.9 percent for most workers, and it shows a negative return, as you see over here, for some, compared to over 7 percent for the marketplace. So the marketplace for the last 120 years has averaged a return of 7 percent, a real return. This is what this graph depicts. You have a negative return if you happen to be a minority. The reason is that a young black worker today, their life expectancy is about 62.5 years. That means they can work all their life, paying into Social Security, but, on average, they die before they start taking any benefits out, and they are substantially shortchanged.”