Social Security Reform Stalls As Retirement Age Moves Up

People still think of retirement age as 65, but it's not. Next year it's closer to 66. And unless Congress can agree on how to meet the challenge of a population with increasing life spans, retirement will continue to be a moving target for younger workers.

Young people already are losing faith in a system that was a better deal for their parents and grandparents. The retirement promise is now shaky.

The later retirement age comes from a law passed back in 1983. The problem then was the same as now -- ranks of retirees growing faster than the pay-as-you-go system could support. The only political will Congress could muster was to raise taxes for a trust fund and increase the retirement age, starting 20 years in the future.

Now that Congress has spent the trust fund on other things, the retirement problem is even more difficult. By 2017 or 2018, Social Security taxes will be insufficient to pay promised benefits, and there will be no excess payroll taxes to pay other government expenses.


http://www.tampatribune.com/News/MGBX4YLGRGE.html

"The problem then was the same as now -- ranks of retirees growing faster than the pay-as-you-go system could support."

Although there were many more workers per retiree in past years, they also paid less of a % of their income in S.S. than today's workers.

by 2070 - indeed the "add a month to the requirement for each year increase in the date of birth" method of the last few years just extended may be reasonable - but selling it with lies that Social Security is in trouble stinks.

Lack of payroll tax surplus only matters if US Gov Bonds are not safe investments.

And the surplus financed the tax cut for the rich - why is there a problem with the rich returning the money via higher rates.

A lie formed from half truths is still a lie. And a media that sells the partial truth lie deserves the term "whore".

The government gets the money to pay off bonds all the time by selling new bonds to other people. Basically we're paying off one credit card by transferring the balance onto another and we're able pto pay the interest by adding more and more debt and everything is happy.

That can't go on forever though can it with bigger and bigger numbers every year?

And when so many of the bonds will be eeded at the same time will we find the new people willing to lend us the money to pay off the old people?

That's my worry that long term it just isn't doable.

all own.

So why is SS more at risk than the whole damn economy of the US..

And we have the "safest economy" in the world.

Therefore bonds are safe - and Soc Sec is safe.

THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE TAX CUT CAUSED DEFICIT.

If that is not fixed, I agree those bonds will not be "safe".

But then it will not matter as Bush will have put us in a depression.

the actuaries report for the expected draw down.

SS actuaries have 3 senarios - and bonds last forever in one, and to 2041 in another. CBO actuaries see 2050 as the empty point. The most likely is forever.

But tax increases on the rich will be needed to repay the monies now being used to finance the tax cuts for the rich.

And tax increases on the rich is the one thing the GOP fears most.

So we would rather talk about cutting/ending social security so there will never be a need to raise taxes to pay off bonds - and the rich get to keep the social security payroll tax surplus.

The deficit just moves today's gift to the rich down to your grandchildren - so they can pay it off in their taxes because we were too frighten to return the tax rate on the rich to Clinton Era levels - those days of old when we had real job creation that averaged 240,000 per month and did not set off a monthly Rose Garden speech plus daily follow-ups. Plus Clintons Job increase of 22 million had less than 500,000 as the guess at stay at home jobs, while Bush job number include stay at home jobs (the birth/death guess) at the 2 million level - half of all the Bush job increase to date is the pretend stay at home jobs.

What will be happening in 2018?

I will make it real easy on you. Just tell me who is going to win the Superbowl this year. I have some serious money I want to put on the winning team.

Sound silly? Sure it is. So are projections for 2018 or 2010 or even 2006.

If we aren't going to have enough workers to cover Social Security checks in 2018, Social Security will be the least of our problems.

There were I don't know two billion people in the world and we read this projection that by the year 2000 there would be 5 or 6 billion people and I thought that was ridiculous. So many things will change between now and then so who could predict anything of value. Anyway, the earth couldn't support 5 billion people anyway.

So here I am a past middle age guy and I look and sure enough there are 5-6 billion people on earth and all the problems they taked about us having, we have.

So I agree that long term predictions are difficult, but I'd say not to poo poo them entirely.

The reason I poo poo them is because people stop there and haul out their suicide kits.

What we should be doing is working on the economic factors that create jobs to keep up with population growth.

I can understand the reasons to fret about these things when you read about many more job losses than new jobs created. But I repeat, in such a case, it ain't only Social Security that we, er - you young folks and my kids will have to worry about.

All those unemployed will present uh - a security problem, for starters.

Originally the maximum tax social security took from a wage earner was 1 % and another 1 % from the employer for a maximum of 2 %.

Over the years each time the syatem got out of balance we raised the percentage tax we're taking from employer and employee until it is at it's current 13 % plus 3 % for medicare for a total of 16 %.

We really can't keep doing this for the future can we?

Can we raise the tax to 20 % to get back into balance again?

Even if you're just in the 15 % income tax bracket, you can't afford to pay another 20 % to FICA too can you?

It seems we need a better solution than just raising the FICA tax again every decade or so.

...people who want to eliminate it completely (mostly Bush fans). The trust fund is government securities, just like all the other government securities the US Gov't sells on a daily basis. ALL that debt will eventually come due, not just the SS trust fund.

This crisis is related to the federal debt, not to SS itself. We need to call a spade a spade.

And Bush's stupid tax cuts for the rich are only exacerbating this crisis.

(and post # 1)

They are just blowing bullshit hot-air at us.

They are very clever after all
(No, they do nothing for the economy)

Every time I hear people say that ** is a failed president, I want to scream. He is very successful in what he did. The problem is: his actions are detrimental to the American people as a whole.
But for the forces that installed this fucking chimp it's a glowing success: tax cuts for the rich, "drug benefit" for the Big Pharma, boon for the oil industry, defense contractors, the list goes on and on.

/End of rant/

I can't afford to retire and with many pensions and social security going by the way many others will be like me. We will compete for the jobs that younger people want. We have more experience but who knows what will happen.


Maybe us old farts should just be made into soilent green.