Your facts are right but your conclusions are just simply wrong! Take me, for example. I am an American working in Japan. I have qualified for American social security in the future (I'm not 67 yet) because I have worked for over ten years in America. But here in Japan, they require their citizens to work for 25 years before they qualify for a Japanese social security benefit! Now I just got here in Japan six years ago. Without the USA-Japan Social Security Totalization Agreement, I would NEVER qualify for a Japanese social security benefit because I won't be working here for another 19 years. With me so far? That means my US social security benefit would always be calculated on only the years I worked in the USA. I would get nothing from the USA or Japan for all the years I worked in Japan (Oh yes, I am paying for Japanese SS!). Thanks to the USA-Japan SS Totalization Agreement, I WILL get a Japanese social security benefit for the few years I work in Japan. The Totalization agreement requires the Japanese to add all the years I worled in America to the years I work in Japan ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF ELEGIBILITY for a Jpanese SS benefit. The Japanese SS benefit will probably be small, but I only worked here for a few years. Why are the Japanese so generous? They aren't. They expect the USA to also honor the same Totalization agreement for Japanese who may have worled in the USA. It's only fair that these Japanese also get an American SS benefit if they worked in the USA, don't they? If they didn't work ten years in the USA, they would get nothing for all that social security they paid. Is that fair? Even better news for you: my American SS benefit is going to be partially reduced because I will be receiving a Japanese SS benefit! That means more money for retirees in the USA! Don't worry, the Japanese SS payment will more than make up for the American reduction in my American SS benefits.