Generally, you are required to contribute to Social Secuirity and Medicare on your "earned income" (work type activities). There are certain employers that provide a different retirement "plan" that exempts them from Social Security (some federal, state and local jobs along with railroad employees.) Everyone else is generally required to contribute to SS. The few exceptions generally are connected to religous beliefs - the non-acceptance of social welfare assistance (the Amish among others are an example). If an individual can establish that they do not believe in receiving goverment social assistance due to their faith, they are not required to contribute to SS, and will be ineligible to receive funds later in life.
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Originally posted by eribrav
Social Security is a giant Ponzi scheme, and those on the bottom now are not going to see any of their hard earned dollars again. I'm in my mid 30's and when I do my retirement planning I assume ZERO will be coming to me from SS.
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It's good to plan that way so that you won't have to rely on Social Security to provide your sole source of funds. However I disagree that you will never see anything from SS. Sure we (under 40) will most likely not receive the rate of return that those who came before us have, but it will still be there. Eventually there will be some method of continuing the assured funding of SS enacted - whether it is extended retirement ages (in place already, but more expanded), increased contributions (either rates or thresholds), and/or decreased benefits. It will be there, but how and how much is the question.