If Social Security were a private retirement fund, we’d sue.
All that money you’ve poured into the Social Security trust fund over the years earned less than 1% during 2020, the funds’ administrators have revealed.
The S&P 500 index SPX, +0.60% ? Try 18%.
Even a simple balanced fund of U.S. stocks and bonds, such as the Vanguard Balanced Index Fund VBIAX, +1.08%, earned 16%.
And the giant pension and investment fund run by the government of Norway earned 10.9%.
The returns earned by Social Security is the scandal that keeps on taking. The previous year, the Norwegian pension fund gained 20%, the balanced index fund 22%, and the S&P 500 31%.
Your and my Social Security dollars? Just 2.2%.
Why should Congress care what happens to your money once they have it to spend?
h/t SG