The people pushing raising the retirement age have soft, non-physical jobs.

Social Security to them is cookie jar money.

What an interesting time to be alive and witness all this crap.

Nobody thought of long retirements then.

And Hillary is waffling on raising it or not.

For anyone in the USA who has ever lost their livelihood after the age of 50 (I am one), lowering the retirement age, removing caps on income, and means testing to determine need makes allot of sense. Well, at least it does to me ...

As for HRC, the article clearly states she is not in favor of raising the retirement age, but might consider it for those with means (like her) if she could be convinced the plan would not hurt those in need. The argument that she's "waffling" is a bit disingenuous at best.

Eliminate the cap and lower the retirement age to 62, but no means testing.

My understanding is "increasing the cap" means that people making over $118,000 (I believe it is) must start paying payroll taxes on the amount OVER the $118,000. There is a BIG difference.

be an increase based only on the difference between 150,000 and the current cap (I think 118,500).

consistency. Even when talking about helping the poorest, she still has her biggest worries for the wealthy. I wish she would lose every cent she has and deal with life at my end of the spectrum. It would serve her right.

so Hillary wants to talk about Soc Security that is political suicide
The next debate Bernie has to hit her even harder...This Woman is not a progressive and its is time the Gloves come off

this is Hillary's 2nd try for a 3rd term

I agree completely.

Take a social insurance program, which covers everyone equally and turn it into a program for the poor. It's the same bullshit she said during the debate ==that Trump's kid should not get free college. Bollocks. We should provide every kid free college, because that should be a benefit of being a citizen of this country. Can you imagine if we turned rich kids away from the door of PS 129? so why should they be turned away from free universal higher ed?

Programs for the poor are poor programs.

It's a tried and true deflection in order to keep the bank loans humming along.

She has to add " if they want to work or it" too - as if all college students are just "takers" with their hands out expecting freebies.

pass this horseshit. No, it will take a "Democrat" to destroy the most humane and helpful program in the history of our country. It really gives me pause.

I need to ask it, isn't casting a vote for these politicians, politicians who are open to "tweaking" Social Security to make it harder to collect, aren't we sending the message that we're OK with sacrificing Social Security? If my vote is the exercise of my voice, then I am telling the PTB loudly and clearly to fuck me. No, this is not as easy a decision for me as many of ya'll would like to believe.

I'm scared as hell voting for incremental change that goes against my best interest. I'm scared of making cuts to Social Security palatable. I'm almost more afraid of that than I am voting for the fucking fascists because at least I can hope that people are smart enough to regret that choice and the pendulum should swing back hard.

No, this is not in any way cut and dry for me, and I wholeheartedly fucking resent the blue dog buggers who put me in this position.

at our end of the spectrum as well. The idea of greater inequality, more wars, faster environmental collapse, unattainable education and retirement for many and continuing the world's most expensive health care industry doesn't bother them in the slightest. It's all about party scores and a vagina. Insane.

politicians. Dick Cheney is at the top of my list I would like to see him reduced to living on Social Security which would be around $3,000 a month with his only health plan to be Medicare so he has to wait in line with everyone else for his next heart transplant.

...I find myself hoping it did not come from a Democrat.

If it came from a Democrat, one would hope he'd find shame and try to repair his past transgressions.

I don't want a 70 year old driving the bus I take to work every day -- or the cab I hop into. But let's just make public transpo more dangerous -- who gives a fuck so long as it makes Wall Street happy?

Illegal, sure. But impossible to prove.

or who are of an age to get pregnant. I recall the story of the super friendly personnel interviewer who always walked female applicants back to their cars. He wasn't allowed to ask them about their kids, but he was on the lookout for booster seats in the cars.

Payroll taxes on people that are not affluent are in no way burdensome to them and not a problem, but asking the more affluent to pay payroll taxes on the money they have (which is more) is unacceptably burdensome to them?

Ummm that sounds ass backwards to me.

Less affluent people's lifespans are decreasing, in other words those that actually need SS to survive are living slightly less longer than they used to, coincidentally, the more affluent among us are living longer than ever showing an increase in lifespan not shared by those that would be fucked by raising the retirement age.

This also seems ass backwards to me, is the goal to kill off all the poor people before they can retire or something? leaving more SS money in bonds so that money borrowed from the workers of the country's retirement fund (accrued in the trillions) will never have to be payed back by the war profiteers that "borrowed" the money leaving T-bills in the money's place?

Do these people stroke cats in there laps and live in volcanoes while dreaming up these policies?
They got nothing on Bond Villains.

I'm almost to the senior citizen status. So many of my friends are dead and gone already.

I know of a few of the WWII generation still around but late-boomers like me seem to be dropping like flies ... cancer cancer cancer it seems to me.

Ref: Recent musician deaths = 70+ years of age all of them.

I'm not at all thinking for one second that some how this section of folks will live a real long time. It is almost eerie to me.



Note: Working in the trades after age 60 is a poor idea from what I've noted! NO! What the hell is wrong with this woman any way? Entrenched in greed suspect ...

My knees and back are shot, I have a "trick" shoulder that pops out of joint as well as a trick knee.

I have not been able to work productively in he trades since I was 50. Now a half dozen years later I have serious other health problems that will ensure I will never reach 70,maybe not even 62.

I am quite disabled, yet for 4 years now I have been denied the disability I paid into since I got my working papers and have to wait another 8 to 12 months for the next hearing.

They really are trying to kill off us working stiffs before honoring one penny of what they owe us for all those payroll taxes we contributed aren't they?

I used to think it was just the Republicans but between Obama and his grand bargain, the thirdway manifesto on the subject on their website and Hillary, it appears we are completely outnumbered and royally fucked.

My wife died of cancer at 50 and also did not enjoy this longer life span they keep talking about whilt rationalizing raising the retirement age. What greed, what a scam.

It sounds like you've gone through a lot.

And I can understand the hoops you are jumping through-- my mom is also having to jump through a bunch of hoops just to get a little more a month in Social Security. It seems like they want you to be hanging by your fingernails from an economic cliff just to qualify for a few bucks more a month.

Very sorry to read about your situation and your late wife.

I hope you have an attorney is about all I can say and that you aren't one of these "do-it-yourself" types as it will only prolong the situation.

I've been out of the workforce for sometime myself with a progressive disease for which there is no cure. I had to get an attorney to get my benefits and it was not that simple and I after just doing my taxes, I came in at just over $12K a year income total which is poverty level.

Makes one sad when one thinks how they've worked for years and end up with nothing or next to nothing.

I wish you the best and keep on 'em! If the lawyer you might have isn't doing a good job, well by all means do find another one (that is assuming that you do have one, especially at this stage of the game).

I don't particularly care to live to see 70 years with what I've got going, I'll admit it and I have no great "support system" at all. Quite a sad situation it is.

It the mean time, please try to take care of yourself! again ...

I also, in addition to all the physical damage done to many of my joints from a lifetime of hard work, have two separate chronic and progressive diseases that will greatly reduce my life expectancy, the worst being pulmonary hypertension, it means my breath delivers less and less oxygen to my bloodstream as the condition worsens. I currently only need oxygen part time, but eventually I will need it all the time and soon after that I will be unable to exert myself enough to even get out of bed, then death.

Thank you for the kind words, but the ssdi program has devolved into a game of stalling until one either gives up, dies, or is lucky enough to prevail but only after years have passed.

I will soon face eviction due to lack of funds during this wait, so I am just hoping I get my earned insurance payments before that happens and while I can still walk my dog (albeit with the help of supplemental oxygen).

Politicians do not care about people that work hard all their lives, only people that work soft all their lives thus evading the body damage done by 40 years of hard work, and only then if their soft work earns them a place at the 100$ and above a plate fundraising circles.

I think Bernie is different, I think he actually cares about working ppl like most in our party did many years ago when I first became a Democrat. Now he is a rare bird indeed and if I accomplish little else in the few years I have left, my hope is that it will be to help him and others of his ilk get elected re-balancing the scales for ppl like us.

Thank you so much for the compassion, it is a quality that is growing ever more scarce as time passes me by.

This is gross IMO. I see so many that require benefits yet don't get them.

Just yesterday I was at a support group and a person there is blind, yes blind thanks to this problem that we share. Said person has been denied 3X I was told and the reason is because said person is considered to be a fraud despite 27 years of medical records!

In the meantime, some rich awhole out there manages to pull off fully funded retirement, files for SSDI immediately afterwards and gets it while they volunteer at an animal rescue. Pays to have rich awhole connection I suppose eh?

How is this person 100% disabled if able to engage in the tasks involved working at an animal shelter? Does any one even bother to ask while in the meantime people like yourself and the person I mention above keep being denied when they are absolutely legitimate?

is about all I can except stay on them! Keep fighting as you must!

I agree about compassion. I find very little of this in our new high tech world. If you don't have a phone you are considered an odd ball it seems and no, I don't want one nor can I afford one!

You appear to me to have the sort of heart that must give them some comfort in the face of and at the bloody end of this purposely devolved and unfair system.

Just our short conversation has made me feel a little better. I can't attend such a group myself, being without transportation as well as the means to pay for transport. I am also far too limited in my current ability to walk very far.

It may be true in a sense that the good die young, especially under our current system of care and support of those that lack affluence, but, you are proof that some of those people find ways to lend support and caring before being taken.

Thank you so very much for lending a kind ear, I have a good dog that does the same but lacks the ability to verbally comfort me, my wife also gets an earful as I still speak to her everyday out of habit, but she has passed and can not reply.

Besides my faithful dog and the memory and the occasional feeling of the "presence" of my dear wife, I am all alone.

I suppose that is why I still post. I sometimes get to converse with good people, even if at other times I am challenged by the mislead with little empathy and entitled airs that argue for the status quo that is killing many of us. If it is any comfort, I try to lend my support by destroying their flawed arguments and hopefully changing a few minds of those that read the exchanges.

My wife used to say that everything is cyclic, even life and the fortunes of the struggling populace, if such is true, then perhaps my last efforts will not be in vain and I will play some very small part in the return of a cycle of fairness and caring for those in need. Just as you play your part in your ways

Treatments, and devices that would save them are denied.

But the Good News is (she said sarcastically) that the new Big Pharma drugs are killing off the affluent too.

I was reading about Glen Frey, the Eagles musician who died about a week ago. (Gosh I will miss him; I loved him.)

It sounds like he was on some pain med for arthritis, and it apparently caused him to have diverticulitis. (or maybe some antibiotic caused it.)

Now if he had known about this, he could have bought some decent brand of acidophilus and then doubled the recommended dose. In about two days, three days time, he would have been better, and at the end of six weeks, he could even quit taking the acidophilus!

But instead, the modern day quacks decided to give him surgery for diverticulitis. (They almost did this to me too!)

So he ends up with pneumonia and then he's dead soon after.

The surgery is a farce. The complications include the possibility of rupturing of the stomach or intestine walls where the diverticulitis was scraped out, post op. This can be serious and life threatening.

Or the patient might end up needing a colostomy bag for the rest of their life!

Or failing the above, the fact remains, the diverticulitis will probably come back, as what the patient needed was to have some acidophilus!

And the surgery costs X amount, thousands no doubt, with many people having to pay for the deductible or even 20% of the cost of the surgery.

The Jarrow Acidophilus I take costs me $ 14 for a two week supply!

the articles they are linking?

I believe the current slang for lie is "evolve".

She said in 08' she would form a bi-partisan commission to solve the solvency problem, a tactic that proved to, and would prove to again, raise the retirement age.

She also did not rule out raising the age, just some rhetoric about looking into how to do it without hurting people, to me that is a set up for another "evolution".

It tells you where I get my information and conclusions, do you play dumb for a living, or is it a hobby?

have been unnecessary as well as quite annoying which now appears to be the entire purpose of your exchange here.

which you appear not to have even read.

Find another hobby, refuse to read other answers and ignore them, bake a cake, whatever, just stop trolling me.

if you don't like the conversation.

I find that using that function disallows one from seeing blatant lies and misinformation spread on the board.
consider yourself ignored troll.

contentious conversation full of tossed insults and nasty name calling, and yet you are also the one playing the victim.

but $5,000 an hour being a terrible unfair hardship for a CEO.

Sounds exactly like it. Not to mention turning SS into a welfare program, and having a Clinton anywhere near a welfare program scares the shit out of me.

Last edited Sat Feb 6, 2016, 05:42 PM - Edit history (2)

the retirement age, and chained CPI. Those are the third-way goals for 'shoring up' Social Security.

I will cut Social Security and put most of the cuts back for the lowest quintile.

???

Who doesn't even carry her own bags from her private jet to her presidential suite at the five-star hotels she demands.

People are generally so much more healthy and living longer. 62 used to seem old and now there are many very young looking 62-year-olds running around. People are living into their 90s routinely now. Should retirement be for 30 years? Just thinking out loud here. On the one hand, the richest country in the world can afford to keep the same retirement age. On the other, most people are living so much longer, & what if you're forced to retire when you don't want to?

Do you really want a 70 year old carpenter roofing your house?



I find the only people advocating for raising the retirement age have never broken a blister doing any sort of manual labor for a living

now you're proposing a lower retirement age? (" GTF off the roof by 60&quot

Can you clarify?

The working poor are NOT living longer and those who work manual labor jobs have a very difficult time reaching 65.

it's time to move to a job that doesn't involve climbing up on the roof.

What kind of employer sends a 60-year-old up to the roof?

My bro-in-law is in construction & over 60 but he's not up on the roof anymore.

Sorry, yours is an extravagant example, perhaps the exception that proves the rule.

Hey, I'm just arguing for the sake of arguing. We probably agree, but it's better if you have answers for these questions, & not emotional ones about old people working on the roof.

Farming, fruit and vegetable picking, service jobs like housekeeping, shelf stocking, factory work, military personnel, mechanics, butchers, mill work...

These are just off the top of my head but you get the gist - there are a LOT of manual labor jobs out there and those folks are struggling to keep doing their jobs at 60 let alone 70

So I picked a hyperbolic example, that doesn't mean it's not a valid point.

We simply need to raise the cap and all this talk of raising the retirement age goes away.

There are a lot of younguns dragging the age down and a lot of post 60 people driving it right back up. And many of those trades are far far worse than climbing up on a roof.

I'd say about a third of the guys on the last shutdown I was on were in their 60s. And these weren't safety guys, either. They were ironworkers, millwrights, welders, fitters, etc. Hard joint-wrecking labor often done at heights for 12 hours a day 7 days a week.

while waiting for SS to kick in?

from afar? (Can't go up on the roof to personally supervise?)

I'm pretty sure that answer is close to zero.

You sound as though the reality of ageism in the workplace isn't a real and devastating crisis in this country. Turn 50 in many jobs and you're extremely vulnerable.

my bro-in-law is in construction. By 60, he had training & certificates to do inspections and other work that doesn't make him climb up on the roof.

How many companies are sending 60-year-olds up to the roof? I don't think it's a realistic example. That's all. We might agree, mostly.

The wealthy are, while the poor and middle class are living about the same or shorter lives. There are a number of reasons for this.

People who can afford to reduce their financial stress, who can buy that protective bubble of a career, healthy food, gym memberships, vacations, comfortable homes, and regular health monitoring are living significantly longer than their 1980's contemporaries were.
However, the majority of the workforce, living the median wage or lower lifestyle - those who work labor intensive, or lower paying jobs where you never know when the axe is going to fall, who can't manage to come up with the funds to invest in retirement, or buy their graduate education, health and security are not living that much longer, nor are they retiring that much easier. The tail-end boomers, technically 10 years out from retirement according to Social Security are starting to contemplate their retirement, and it's not looking very good - especially as we're competing with more younger, educated workers hungry for the same positions.
Stress kills, as does competition, especially amongst the majority of people who are not significantly exceptional, or lucky, or might have been concentrating on families rather than understanding that if you need to work in this culture for an income, you are not a person, you are simply a tool, and if your kids aren't going to take care of you as you get too pained and weary to compete at the level of a hungry 25 year old, you are going to have to continue pushing the limits of your body until you die. There is little chance of retirement in comfort for the working class. And "modern medicine is just keeping them alive longer, rather than keeping them active longer.

Haele

The less you make, the less you live. I'm not going to work for 45 years so I can retire for 6.

picked that age for a reason. Going with the reason, yes, the equivalent age is higher now.

Though it could depend on the job. Very physical jobs could lead to injury at those ages.

Think of all the great profits the banks and Goldman Sachs could realize if they could only get their hands on all that Social Security money.

It'd be HUGE!!!

by their employers at a much earlier age, like 55, and are unable to find other employment. It will be hard enough for them to survive without raising the age. The system needs more money or we'll have our seniors living in the streets but of course Goldman-Sachs and Wall Street doesn't care.

People are living longer than ever.

lived in to their 70 and 80s.

The only ones actually living longer now are the 1%. Others are actually starting to die younger.

Those are the facts.

edit* I just saw where it said not for labor intensive jobs. BUT I don't think the SS age should be raised anyway. We can give big tax breaks to banks, Wall Street but we can't support our own when they want/need to retire??? Nah - not down with that at all. If other western countries can do it, so can we.

Good luck to you, the driver, everyone else on the bus, and everyone else on the road. Thank you third Way.

It looks so boring.

if I did something physical then it would be different - at advanced ages standing around all day, like waitressing, might get hard. But then I used to get depressed to see old people in my family watching TV and doing crossword puzzles. Or going to play bingo and stuff like that.

My parents actually took courses at a University where they would let seniors go tuition free. If that deal is still on, it might be a good thing.

I mean progressive of her.

Makes me sick to my stomach

I'm still voting for her if she's the nominee.

I Can't Do things but you Can work until 90.

More winning campaign memes.

Universal healthcare will "NEVER EVER" happen, but I'm totally for it!

I oppose universal, tuition-free college!

Yep, those are GREAT slogans!

And means testing is not far behind. And once that happens, the very meaning of SS is over. It's not welfare. It's a social contract we all paid into as a retirement fund for each other. It is a paid for true entitlement—much as I hate the new meaning of that word.

It Is Not Welfare. Not a handout. Not something we have to prove we deserve. Not something we have to beg for.

We took less home every months for years so that older and disabled people would have this.

A woman worth 130M does not get to mess with this.

She is so Republican.

I hope the rest of them wake up soon.

A FEW months ago Hillary was vague in answering the question about raising the Retirement age. She gave a long answer which sounded like she didn't t really answer the question. When I read a transcript of what she had said, it sure read as though she is open to raising the age.

She should be clear on this issue. No doublespeak.

Don't mess with SS