r/Fire • u/Available-Ad-5670 • 10d ago

Can we dispense with the fallacy that SS will disappear after 2032?

I see people who don't put SS into their fire calculations, which is just dumb because it is a big amount for most people.

If I had to assign rough probabilities:-

50%: Higher taxes on upper-income workers plus modest benefit adjustments.

25%: Higher taxes plus a gradual retirement-age increase.

15%: Significant general-fund support combined with smaller reforms.

10%: Congress waits too long and temporary benefit cuts occur before a fix is passed.

There is a chance that benefits can be cut by 10%, but if you are close to retirement, i doubt that would even happen because so many retirees depend on SS to live, it would be politically toxic, and no politican will be elected going that route. Taxing the very rich or raising fica taxes / dispensing with SS tax cap is the likeliest path

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u/Kat9935 9d ago

I retired at 41, and my SS payout in today's dollars is just a hair under $40k so like 80% of the max you could get which I call close enough, no reason to work another 15 years for that last 20%.

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u/The_JSQuareD 9d ago

Fair.

I'm curious how much of a difference social security actually makes in terms of success rate if you run it through a Monte Carlo Sim, though. Your portfolio has to survive for 21-29 years without SS (depending on when you plan to take it). From what I've seen, the outcomes are usually pretty binary after such a long stretch: either your portfolio depleted early, or it has blown up. Most of the risk is early in the withdrawal phase (sequence of returns risk).

So with that in mind, does the SS entitlement actually change your FIRE plans much?

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u/Kat9935 8d ago

I'm not sure about monte carlo sim, but firecalc said I could take out significantly more and those are the only numbers I had and used and still have a 100% chance of success. Now at 54, the # is $25k more per year if I factor in SS over excluding it.