Unfortunately, many people have this misunderstanding. It was never intended, nor practiced as a forced savings account. It has always been a pay as you go collection and distribution system with no actual accounts assigned nor assets accumulated in any individual's name. There is no Social Security Trust account; it is simply a collection of Treasury Notes giving the SS system the right to retrieve the excess collections that the congress siphoned away. In its simplest terms it is a government operated Ponzi scheme. Always has been and will be until it is changed.