[theandrewbailey]

> www.ssa.gov

Interesting you cite Social Security, the mandatory pyramid scheme that every American pays into and many/most retirees rely on for income. If you die before you retire, you get nothing from Social Security. If you have a 401k and die before using all the money in it, your beneficiaries (the people who inherit your stuff when you die) keep it; nothing like that happens to your Social Security benefits.

[dragonwriter]

> If you die before you retire, you get nothing from Social Security. If you have a 401k and die before using all the money in it, your beneficiaries (the people who inherit your stuff when you die) keep it; nothing like that happens to your Social Security benefits.

Social security has both death and survivors benefits, actually.

[Dylan16807]

"Pay in $10k a year for 40 years, get paid $40k a year for 10 years" isn't a pyramid scheme.

You can go buy life annuities at your will, and they're pretty close in function and clearly not schemes.