Agree its a Ponzi scheme, but some people paid through the nose for it over and over if they were self-employed. I owned a business and had over 100 employees and paid FICA tax for decades on their behalf (since half of SS/Medicare is paid by employee and half by employer). I lost track of how many hundreds of thousands of dollars I personally shelled out on FICA for employees, and now the joke is that none of it's there. Ironically my partners and I knew SS was a scam so we fully funded a 401K for all employees so at least they have that now (way more $ than social security). Too bad SS wasn't set up to mandate employers to fund 401K plans instead of flushing it down the drain in DC. But of course the point all along was to accumulate power and money in DC for politicians to use to buy votes and divide people. Mission accomplished.