The question comes up because we have an option to get a 100% refund of my wife's SS taxes which were withheld for 4 years while she was a Resident at Kaiser Permanente (plus some interest). If she files for the refund the Hospital will also get their total payments back for those years and thus her SS earnings might ultimately be effected by an amount proportional to 2x her refund.
On the other hand she has been and will be over the SS max for many of her working years so that it might not be reduced at all. I think I can hand-calculate the difference by pulling up her actual SS records on line and using the retirement calculator to figure out the difference.
This is offset by the fact that we can take the refund (which is tax-free) and invest it from now to retirement and use that amount to generate income.
Without doing the calculations I would guess that the answer could be broken into 3 categories.
Low-earner: Final 10 years near or below the national median of $50,000/yr.
Mid: Final 10 years near or below the SS Max but above $50,000/yr ($106,000 /yr for 2010).
High: Final 10 years significantly above the SS Max.
Low and Mid you're probably better off leaving it in because SS is significantly redistributive in benefits; the lowest earners get the highest benefit relative to payments.
But for the highest group? Is it a wash?
If I get some time later on today and manage to find the documents I'll hand enter the data and see, but then I have to pull together stuff for a mortgage re-fi this weekend so I may succumb to sloth instead.
yrs,
rubato
Is Social Security a "good deal"?
Re: Is Social Security a "good deal"?
If SS is a 'good deal' only for the bottom 90% in income and a net loss to the top 5%* that would provide a self-interested motive for Republicans desire to destroy it.
yrs,
rubato
*and something close to a wash for those in-between.
yrs,
rubato
*and something close to a wash for those in-between.
Re: Is Social Security a "good deal"?
Depends on how long you plan on living after you retire. or if you live long enough to start to collect.
It becomes a matter of where the breakeven point is. Age 69? 72?
It becomes a matter of where the breakeven point is. Age 69? 72?
Re: Is Social Security a "good deal"?
Hi....dgs49 and welcome! 
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Is Social Security a "good deal"?
After a quick calculation we went for the refund. $10,000 (+/-) in the near future vs a very small change in SS income in the longer future.
yrs,
rubato
yrs,
rubato