Is Social Security a pyramid scheme?

It is . Madoff would be a amateur on the pure scale of operation .

There is no cash saved it only owed back . JFK started stealing from it to make budget

look good

The product being delivered as you put it, is social security benefits for disabled and elderly. They have to come from current payroll deductions.

In a Ponzi or pyramid scheme, the creator is the one who profits personally from taking money from one investor and using it to pay phony dividends to another invester and keep shuffling the investors' money around. The U.S. government does take employee/employer contributions from people who are working and use them to pay people who are reaching retirement age and others who use Social Security such as indigent low income people who are disabled, survivor benefits for spouses and children and other programs.

So because the government does not keep the money, and pays all of it out in benefits, it is not a Ponzi scheme. Social Security is not bankrupt. It has $250 billion in reserves invested in government bonds. The surplus was used up by years of Congressional grabs and leaving IOUs and also more programs causing a drain on the fund.

Social security is paid for out of the general fund, so no its not a pyramid scheme. In addition, costs would not be so high if there were not so many bad backers,mildly depressed, etc.. on social security. Social security after-all, was originally setup the deaf and blind, and was latter extended to those in wheel chairs, without a limb, and stuff like that.

edit:

I forgot to state that it was originally setup for seniors too. Seniors, however, do not create most of the costs we have with social security those bad backers, mildly depressed, etc.. do.

Social Security is "pay as you go." Each year is funded by money collected that same year. That's not really a pyramid scheme.

Now, if you project how many people will collect social security and how many people will pay into it a few years down the road, there's a pretty big, obvious problem coming. But you fundamentally misunderstand how social security is funded.

Its more like a trapezoid. Some people pay into it but die before they turn 65, but the majority of people live past 65.

If I say "Yes", and I do, it does not alter any fact: We still have to fix it.

yes it is