Gaslighting Seniors is the New Normal

• Author: Jacob Greene
• Posted: 2024-04-30

If you're a senior ready to retire who's been keeping up with the news on Social Security payments you could receive (SSI), then you may have noticed a few news articles popping up recently that are begging you not to retire. "Seniors should keep working, and here's why," is the basic gist of these articles. Though do you actually know what the "why" is? The gaslighting that's starting to take place involving seniors and SSI is about a government that finds itself massively in debt yet cannot stop spending.

Did you know that of that $1.2 trillion passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden a few months ago, $0 will go toward bridges and roads and sewers? It's true. The Biden Administration has redefined "infrastructure" to mean "equity," which means this money will be spent on "social justice," not on fixing your streets. The mismanagement of money is so incredibly widespread and blatant with the current government that corporate media is now begging seniors not to retire, so the government will not have to send money to more people.

Senior Benefits Held Hostage?

Current tensions with Russia over their dealings with Ukraine are very reminiscent to many Americans of Iraq and the Gulf before it and even Vietnam before that. America, not asked to step into war, and not attacked personally, decides that it's best to intervene. This means that America's military budget is only going to continue to grow, likely exponentially, as each new government to assume office starts a new conflict at a time where it's most costly to do so. Unfortunately, Social Security is too often treated as some community pool to be taken from. You see, when some powerful Senator or Representative wants to fund a pet project but can't budget it due to increased spending on the war, SSI money is often one of the first pots they stick their hands into, and so seniors suffer by not receiving cost-of-living increases or adjustments for inflation.

So what's happening now is that America's corporate media is going on a big push to urge seniors to stay in the workforce, because they do not want seniors complaining about how they're not receiving increases and how some of their services could be cut to help fund another global conflict that drags on for decades at a time. It's unfair to seniors, but as recent studies at universities have concluded, the American government does not answer to the people anymore. It only answers to huge corporations and lobbyists, and so war is more lucrative for them than repaying the money to which seniors are entitled.

It's Your Money

Something that seniors should certainly understand when speaking about this topic is that this is your money. It is not the government's money, nor was it ever intended to be the government's money. Social security was originally conceived of much like a banking system. Some banks use the money deposited to invest and grow, but they ensure that it's still there when you come to withdraw your funds. Social security was intended to work the same way. The insane amount of money the government decided one day that it would allow itself to take from you was supposed to be an investment, which you would see a return on once you retired from the workforce.

Part of this investment is also supposed to cover things like interest and the higher costs of living, etc. It is the government that has reneged on their end and has messed this system up. For many years now, the government has been using the money that rightfully belongs to American seniors in order to fund immigration and other welfare programs, all of which are outside of the agreement that the government made. The end result is a system that's begging seniors to work longer and longer so that the retired seniors do not "strain" a system that was already intentionally abused by the government itself.

The bottom line is that when you're ready to retire, you should be able to retire. The government is going to do whatever the government wants to do, as it always has. The government no longer represents the people, and everyone knows this. It represents special interests and big money. That aside, social security is yours by right when you retire, so do not let the gaslighting convince you to work yourself into a grave.