48 years ago ...

... I signed up for my first real job, working with a guy helping him build a slot racing track in a building at the corner of Forklanding and Main in Maple Shade, NJ.  A buck and a quarter an hour, and I needed a Social Security card and a work permit to start because I was just 14 years old.  Both came from a signup in some federal office (I don't remember where) and I still have the SS card with my original signature.  It's tacked to my office bulletin board.

I began paying into my SS account then and maxed out my presumed life benefits in my late thirties; I made some pretty good loot in my career.  After that, every penny I paid into FICA went to support someone else's retirement.  So for the last two and a half decades or so of my paid career all of the FICA dough I paid in made it possible for men and women younger than me (you, for example) to get the same expected retirement bennies as me.

This week I start getting my monthly little bags of gold from Uncle Sugar.

Trust me, the bags of gold are not as big as they could be.  Or as they should be.  Nor will yours be.

Not my fault, kids.