What would you consider a "living wage", in the current economy?

[elias7]

27. You want to turn social security into an entitlement program? Math doesn't work.

How do you determine how much SS someone would get, as there is a formula based on what income you make in your lifetime?

How about high school dropouts? When do we start paying them?

I dont get the math. For example, this year 3.2 million people will graduate from hs. Let's be fair and pay all dropouts when they hit 18 as well: another 1 million. So what's the living wage? $1000/mo? $12k/yr? That's $50 billion for one single age group per year. With a life expectancy of 80, that means 67 single age groups get paid, coming to $3.3 trillion/ yr, which pretty much is The entire 2012 budgetary spending (20% of which currently goes to ss), despite revenue of only $2.3 trillion.

Right now ss pays for itself, $820 Billion in $725 billion out. You want to expand SS 400%.

If you decide that a living wage is $50k/yr, your program will cost $14 trillion.

And taxing at 50% really would build resentment by those who work. The Fox meme of us paying for freeloading welfare recipients would actually be somewhat accurate.