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Social Security?

ttwtt78640 said:
That’s why it’s unreasonable to expect anyone to live (especially alone) on SS income. My girlfriend and can I manage to live on our (combined) SS incomes and Medicare, but neither of us is disabled (yet).
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I agree, which is why I'm dead set against cutting benefits as a solution. If we simply eliminate the tax cap on wages, it gets us 86% of the way to perpetual solvency. I would couple that with putting estate/gift taxes in the trust fund; and having a minimum tax on "other" compensation (including carried interest). I would even allow the trust fund to invest 20% in other assets.
 
NWRatCon said:
I agree, which is why I'm dead set against cutting benefits as a solution. If we simply eliminate the tax cap on wages, it gets us 86% of the way to perpetual solvency.
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Not without also limiting benefits.
 
RetiredUSN said:
www.cnbc.com

Social Security, Medicare should be 'off the table' in debt ceiling talks, McCarthy says

Debt ceiling negotiations between Democrats and Republicans should not include Social Security and Medicare, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com

Social Security and Medicare should be “completely off the table” when it comes to debt ceiling negotiations, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in a Sunday interview.

At the same time, the California Republican also called for “strengthening” those programs.

“If you read our Commitment to America, all we talk about is strengthening Medicare and Social Security,” McCarthy told CBS’s Face the Nation.
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McCarthy described Trump's culpability in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Before January, 2021 was over,
McCarthy contradicted entirely his condemnation of Trump.

Who should I believe, George Santos voted SoH McCarthy or Senate Leader Schumer?

 
ttwtt78640 said:
Include your source link (for the 86%) and I’ll quote what I mean.
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It's from my earlier link from the "game", based on American actuaries.
 

Proposals to Change Social Security​

https://www.ssa.gov › OACT › solvency

The last 11 Trustees Reports have indicated that Social Security's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Fund reserves would become ...

  • Contribution and Benefit Base - SSA​

    https://www.ssa.gov › oact › cola › cbb

    The OASDI tax rate for self-employment income in 2023 is 12.4 percent. For Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI) program, the taxable maximum was the same as that
 
"An easier solution would be to eliminate the earnings cap while leaving benefits as is. The extra revenue would solve the financial gap for 35 years, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

About 180 million Americans contributed a total of $943 billion to Social Security in 2021. Ending the cap for the 5% of US workers who earn more than $160,200 would increase revenue by more than $150 billion."

500 Reasons to Eliminate the Income Cap for Social Security Taxes (WaPo)​

"In 1994, a bipartisan group of lawmakers eliminated the income cap that used to exist for taxes paid by workers to fund Medicare."

I am trying to re-find the source, but I did read that the demographic crisis that has made SS at risk will resolve itself by 2056. This one change will make SS solvent for the foreseeable future, and affect only 5% of workers. Of course, it will also require calibration to avoid tax cheats (e.g., shifting wages to stock options, carried interest, etc.).
 
KLATTU said:
From your own link...

While there is an element of truth in that these social welfare programs could be phased out in Scott’s model, the DSCC claim overreaches by painting that uncertain outcome as a broad party position, giving voters a misleading impression.

We rate the claim Mostly False.

Just a heads up for the future. If you are going to post a link in support of a position you are taking, make sure it doesn't refute the position you are asserting!
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Denial! It's not just a river in Egypt anymore.
 
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NWRatCon said:
"An easier solution would be to eliminate the earnings cap while leaving benefits as is. The extra revenue would solve the financial gap for 35 years, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

About 180 million Americans contributed a total of $943 billion to Social Security in 2021. Ending the cap for the 5% of US workers who earn more than $160,200 would increase revenue by more than $150 billion."

500 Reasons to Eliminate the Income Cap for Social Security Taxes (WaPo)​

"In 1994, a bipartisan group of lawmakers eliminated the income cap that used to exist for taxes paid by workers to fund Medicare."

I am trying to re-find the source, but I did read that the demographic crisis that has made SS at risk will resolve itself by 2056. This one change will make SS solvent for the foreseeable future, and affect only 5% of workers. Of course, it will also require calibration to avoid tax cheats (e.g., shifting wages to stock options, carried interest, etc.).
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good one ..............
 
Millions of republicans are receiving Social Security Insurance monthly. Fake Republicans and their austerity
policy does not make dollars and sense. Austerity pulls money from the economy which is reckless indeed.

Austerity = Wreckanomics
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Include your source link (for the 86%) and I’ll quote what I mean.
Click to expand...
An alternate source is the CFRFB's interactive tool. This indicates that removing the cap on payroll taxes will close 63% of the gap.

The Social Security Reformer - Interactive Tool

What will it take to save Social Security for future generations? Try the Social Security Reformer, an interactive tool from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Make the choices and share with your friends. See how your choices stack up!
www.crfb.org www.crfb.org

Increasing the max benefit age to 69, and indexing it to longevity thereafter, finishes the job.

Or, we can increase payroll taxes by a whopping 1.3%.

Of course, all this "crisis" is manufactured nonsense. Dollars are dollars, a tax is a tax, an outflow is an outflow. But if you're going to buy into this accounting fiction of dedicated taxes, it's reasonable to assume it really isn't that difficult to make SS solvent.
 
Visbek said:
An alternate source is the CFRFB's interactive tool. This indicates that removing the cap on payroll taxes will close 63% of the gap.

The Social Security Reformer - Interactive Tool

What will it take to save Social Security for future generations? Try the Social Security Reformer, an interactive tool from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Make the choices and share with your friends. See how your choices stack up!
www.crfb.org www.crfb.org

Increasing the max benefit age to 69, and indexing it to longevity thereafter, finishes the job.

Or, we can increase payroll taxes by a whopping 1.3%.

Of course, all this "crisis" is manufactured nonsense. Dollars are dollars, a tax is a tax, an outflow is an outflow. But if you're going to buy into this accounting fiction of dedicated taxes, it's reasonable to assume it really isn't that difficult to make SS solvent.
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Raising the SS ‘full benefit’ retirement age would (greatly?) increase the number of folks able to collect (the higher) SS disability benefits. Few seem to take that into account when they propose raising the ‘full benefit’ age.
 
I found the report that showed that the shortfall would ameliorate after 2056. It's from the 2010 Trustees report.

"What is Causing the Financial Status to Show Shortfall?​

With the current 12.4 percent payroll tax rate, along with additional revenue from federal income taxation of benefits, the OASDI program has been taking in more tax revenue than it has spent providing benefits for more than two decades. However, this favorable cash flow will be changing in the future as the large baby boom generation, born from 1946 through 1965, moves into retirement. The oldest people in this generation have already reached early retirement age (62), and the transfer of this generation from working age to retirement age will continue for the next 20 years. The substantial increase in the cost of the OASDI program from 2010 to 2030, both as a percent of taxable payroll and GDP, is founded in an even more basic shift in our economy: the change in the ratio of beneficiaries to the number of workers."

Basically, the baby boom generation represents an anomaly. That anomaly will pass through the system over a 20-year period, creating a greater-than-normal drain on the fund, after which the steady birth rate/entry into the workforce of later generations will once again stabilize the cash flow - the ratio of workers to retirees will return to normal - in 2056, as the last my generation (that's me) dies off.

The key is to get through the next 30 years.
 
I found more on the "Baby Boom" effect on Social Security. It's important to note, before getting into particulars, that the Worker-to-retiree radio fluctuates over generations. Right now, today, the millennial generation and generation X are both bigger that the Boomer generation. They're the workers, now, but they'll be retirees in the 2050s.

Because the worker ratio changes with the generations, this will happen again in the future.

First, the Boomer generation was born between 1946 and 1965. The first tranche of that generation has been retired for some time. The last will reach full retirement (67) by 2032. All SS calculations are based upon full retirement. The average life expectancy at 65 is 20 years (19.2 for men, 21 for women), meaning the bulk of that generation will be "leaving" the SS system by 2052 or so.

That is where the 2056 number came from - when the "Boomer drain" will have passed, and the worker-retiree ratio will return to generating surpluses. Until the next uptick in generational retirements (the echo generation).
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Raising the SS ‘full benefit’ retirement age would (greatly?) increase the number of folks able to collect (the higher) SS disability benefits.
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That seems rather unlikely.

Keep in mind that disability can be pretty tough to get in the US, as you have to prove that you basically can't work at all on a long-term basis.

Plus, we're only talking about a 2 year delay. Meaning people can still retire as early as 64 if it's really necessary.
 
Visbek said:
That seems rather unlikely.

Keep in mind that disability can be pretty tough to get in the US, as you have to prove that you basically can't work at all on a long-term basis.

Plus, we're only talking about a 2 year delay. Meaning people can still retire as early as 64 if it's really necessary.
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I had not seen a proposal to increase early retirement to 64.

Plus, this is one of the carry-over impacts of systemic racism. Here's the reality, and it will take generations to resolve:
1) Blacks still have a significantly lower life expectancy than other races and ethnicities, "Life expectancy for Black people was only 71.8 years compared to 77.6 years for White people and 78.8 years for Hispanic people." (KFF) This affects how much SS will actually be paid.
2) "In the United States, the average Black and Hispanic or Latino households earn about half as much as the average White household and own only about 15 to 20 percent as much net wealth." (FED) Both of those affect retirement assets, life expectancy and how much SS will actually be paid.
3) Non-white employees are more likely to work in the service industries, and less likely to work in white-collar jobs, so they have a higher incidence of work-related injury and disability.
"Reflecting the rebound in the number of hours worked in 2021, all groups experienced more occupational deaths in 2021 compared to 2020:
  • White (205 more deaths, +7%)
  • Black or African-American (112 more deaths, +21%)
  • Hispanic or Latino (58 more deaths, +5%)
  • Asian (28 more deaths, +19%)
  • Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (10 more deaths, +125%)
  • American Indian or Alaska Native (9 more deaths, +28%)" (National Safety Council)
Continuing the trend, this affects how much SS will actually be paid, because they often have to retire earlier, reducing their benefits and die younger, reducing their benefits.
 
The Republican Party is not going to cut SS. They can promulgate that canard till the end of time.

The votes are never going to be there, so it’s quite apropos that the party will engage in such fallacious rhetoric knowing it’s about owning the libs…
 
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