Social Security is NOT "from the government" as opposed to "savings - that's on you" and 401Ks "from your employer".
THEY ARE ALL (with a very minor exception for employer match contributions to 401Ks) YOUR SAVINGS.
Social Security is YOUR SAVINGS that the government collects from you and manages for you in a gigantic investment and savings pool, but YOU EARNED AND SAVED THAT MONEY. It's not "from the government", it's YOUR SAVINGS.
I've NEVER seen a 401K plan that wasn't based on your employer or your employer's benefits manager collecting YOUR SAVINGS from you and managing it in a big investment pool, with or without their matching contributions, but YOU EARNED AND SAVED much of that money. Most of it is not "from your employer", it's YOUR SAVINGS.
We are saving. We save in the form of Social Security, we save in the form of 401Ks and many of us also save in other forms.
We don't save enough, true.
Why?
Because sixty years ago ONE family member working ONE decent (if not Union, staving off unionization by providing Union-level wages and benefits) full-time job could afford a modest house payment or decent rent, put food on the table, buy clothes and/or uniforms to send a couple of kids to public schools where they weren't at risk of being shot, AND save for their own retirement.
Nowadays TWO family members working SIX part-time jobs can't match that.
This "not saving enough" is not on us.
This "not saving enough" is on the greedy fuckers who've bought politicians, dismantled worker protections, offshored and cheapassed labor to the point of reinstituting effective serfdom.
But WE LET THEM DO IT.
Because white people were so damn' fucking scared of their kids going to school with brown peoples' kids that they moved to the suburbs and drank the Racist Republican Kool-Aid and allowed the oligarchs to run their smash-and-grab scam with only a bunch of cheap plastic consumer crap for us as compensation. And crackerbox McMansion neighborhoods with nary a brown face in sight.
We are dumb, and we are getting what we've piled up for ourselves.
tiredly,
Bright
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