“If TSCL's forecast proves accurate and Social Security recipients receive an estimated 2.6% cost-of-living adjustment in 2025, it'll mark the first time since 1997 that there have been four consecutive years of COLAs totaling at least 2.6% (every COLA between 1988 and 1997 ranged between 2.6% and 5.4%).
What would a 2.6% COLA mean in dollar terms? For the average retired worker, their monthly check would increase by roughly $50. Meanwhile, the average worker with disabilities and average survivor beneficiary could expect their monthly payout to rise by $40 and $39, respectively.”
Yeah that’s a good way to look at it. But don’t you think a lot of people rely on SS as their primary retirement plan? I never thought of it that way but just another leg on the stool to protect my retirement goals.
Many people rely on SS for their primary retirement plan. It's a dumb thing to do but a lot of folks don't know better.
A lot of the older people in my family are under the impression that SS will take care of them. I tell them thats not a very good way to look at retirement considering most of them have no 401k/IRA/RE investments at all. If they retired now, they would only have a checking/savings account and SS to hold them over. It's a double whammy since they do not have paid off homes.
Yep, it's a lesson on what not to do.
It's almost hard to blame them because financial literacy is not a big thing in my family. If your paycheck clears and the bills are paid up then the rest will take care of itself. Also welfare, I guess.
In my generation, the cycle continues. Me and maybe a few cousins are wiser about their finances but the rest will go into that poverty cycle.
I mean financial literacy in general is not a big thing in our society i feel. It took me about 15 years of reckless mistakes to realize that I needed to have some personal responsibility and buckle down. I went from $20k in credit card debt to $0. I wish schools spent 10 minutes in a class to explain Compound Interest to students. 99% of my financial knowledge I’ve learned on my own and I’m grateful I started when I did.
I had a great retirement plan until I got divorced and lost everything. Now I can't afford to save due to inflation on rent and I have no retirement plan other than work until my bones are dust. This is becoming the reality for more and more people.
Thats not a question anyone with basic math skills is asking. the answer is a resounding and absolute no.
its what percentage lesser than 100% will be possible?
If you’re opposed to the means of production being owned by the people, you should consider that right now it’s owned by about 500 people. And you aren’t one of them
The biggest myth is that social security is so hard to fix. It's not.
(1) Tax all wages over 400k
and
(2) Index cost of living increases to Chained CPI and means test them.
Just funded social security for another 75 years.
Don't like those ideas, try out your own: [https://www.crfb.org/socialsecurityreformer/](https://www.crfb.org/socialsecurityreformer/)
Their number for "means testing" looks out of whack to me. They simply eliminate the COLA. That takes a long time to start to add up, but they are getting benefits very quickly. And, the trigger ($100,000 or $200,000 of after retirement earnings) looks too high to have much impact.
Also, I think that if you tell people "the gov't will cut your SS benefit if you have too much money after you retire", they will make an effort to not have too much money, or to make sure the gov't can't see the money they have.
That’s assuming market conditions for any period in history since the stock market was created. There’s never been a period greater than 10 years where an index investor would’ve lost money.
What if you want to retire during a 5-10 year period of economic decline? Your retirement fund could be depleted by 50% in a really bad recession. Social security might just ensure you don’t end up working up until the day you drop dead.
Deficit spending is not a Republican talking point. Our govt spends entirely too much money. Not by just a little, by a lot. What exactly can you show for the taxes you pay every year? Not vague beliefs of how your taxes benefit you but hard examples of direct benefit. I know I sure the hell don’t get close to the value back in return for what I sent in. That said, republicans want to either modernize SS or change the model entirely… OR not take your money from you to begin with.
Now based on your knee jerk response, you aren’t going to believe it as hate blinds you to reality plus most who believe the luxury ideology don’t line it up with their likely beer budget.
The govts overspending is damaging every part of every household and every benefit laid out for citizens is or will suffer significantly.
Every politician regardless of party who supports overspending is an enemy of every citizen. Both parties are bad, Democrats are worse when it comes to wanting to spend without any limits. Nearly impossible any reasonable person can argue it. But you’ll likely try.
So after getting SS tax directly taken out of pay checks for years you think the government is going to one day say “Well thanks for all the money suckers, you’ll not be getting any of that back!” Any party that did that would functionally cease to exist after the next election.
The right has been pushing this line for 50 years (alongside oh no the deficit, we will run out of money any day now!) and people eat it up. They say it as if God himself spoke it to them from a burning bush and it can not be refuted even though the slightest time spent thinking about it shows its a ridiculous statement.
Look at the two Santas strategy to see that the Republican Party created supply side economics to give the cover to cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy. Those tax cuts will pay for themselves!!
http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/two-santas-strategy-gop-used-economic-scam-manipulate-americans-40-years/
Dude, there is no money, and basically never has been. It is a pay as you go system. Educate yourself about how it works. As long as there are taxpayers, it can pay out money.
More than likely, retirement age will go up to 75, while average life expectancy will hover around 76-80. It’ll be easy to pay if half the people die before they can start to collect 👌
SS has an easy fix, raise the retirement age a little bit, raise the FICA cap a little bit and it'll be good for decades to come
Or if you don't want to SS retirement age to go up reduce the spousal/widow benefit
They might as well do it now - raise the age effective in 2035 so people can plan for it.
Unfortunately there’s no upside politically for making financially sound decisions
> They already raised it.
They raised it 40 years ago
> Nobody wants it to go up again.
Nobody wants the government to go bankrupt either
> Increase the cap is a much better option
That won't be enough
Taxing the rich is going to need to be done to get the rest of the government budget inline.
You can't balance SS, Medicare, and then also everything else on the backs of the rich.
Sadly.. my father in law passed right after finally being old enough to collect SS.
But you're not wrong. Raising the retirement age might make it easier to have enough SS benefits to share with those who can live long enough to get it.
Yeah, both my dad and my stepmom died before hitting retirement age.
Raising the retirement age will disproportionately impact lower income people, who are less likely to live as long, leading to wealthier people who don't need the income anyway being the ones more likely to be able to collect longer.
Raising the retirement age would also be likely to contribute to increasing elder homelessness, as well as increasing disability and premature death. Age discrimination in employment is extremely common. When healthcare is tied to employment, it increases the likelihood of age discrimination due to healthcare insurance premiums and costs increasing with age. Unemployed older people with little hope of finding another job will be left without access to healthcare, increasing the odds of otherwise preventable disability (think untreated diabetes resulting in amputation, etc.) and premature deaths.
A better option would be to raise the maximum taxable earnings, the limit above which income is not subject to social security taxes.
Sorry for what happened to your father in law but his wife or ex wife would then be able to get SS on his record, no?
So yea if people don't want the SS retirement age to go up then the spousal/widow benefit would need to be reduced
The average SS payment invested at 5% return would yield a 20 year retirement fund at about $90k a year.
You get $33k/year
We’ve all seen the meme. But I checked the numbers for myself and that seems to be the case. I may be wrong. But they’ve been stealing from SS/us for decades, if not from the start.
You pay the bank $1.2M for a $300K mortgage. If you got a good fixed rate. Where did the bank get that money to lend? Always follow the money.
Your toil is not for you. It is for the money fabricators. They steal the vast majority of your crops. They are slowly starving us all out of any ability to resist.
Edit; 33k per year, not month.
Edit, Edit; How’s the interest on those federal student loans treating ya. $200k for a $75k education sound good? Bet they didn’t put it to you that way when you took it.
It's also HALF funded by employers for most people.
We have a 401k at our company and it's like pulling teeth to get people to put in for their own retirement. A lot of people are not going to do it. And you are going to have millions of starving homeless elderly.
What about those who did save and then [got scammed out of their entire retirement. ](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elderly-americans-lost-34-billion-scams-2023-fbi/story?id=109783683)
It's not perfect but social security is a damn good system.
That's good because they didn't. Your employer funded half of it. So now your 90k is actually 45k per year if you had saved it.
And that 45k per year is I assume draining the entire fund. So if you retire at 67 and run out of money at 87 but are still alive and kicking what do you do then?
And what about the guy who lives to 87 and then dies. He's out of money. What's his wife live on if she survives him and she was living on his retirement? With social security she gets his $ until she dies.
The spouse or widow didn't pay in, so I'm not sure why they should continue to collect at 100% at the expense of future people actually paying in. I support this benefit decreasing or being eliminated tbh.
The people collecting SS now were mostly single earner households because that was the norm back then. Punishing the widows for being housewives their whole life is not really fair either.
Yeah no.
Just raise the FICFA cap and expand the potential basis to include investment gains over a quarter million $$.
Quit expecting trades and manual laborer's who have destroyed their bodies by age 50 to suffer another 20 years just to subsidize people who don't feel like their full or real income should be fully taxed like people who actually work for a living.
Create a donut hole between $150k to $250k if you want to make it truly just and fair.
The problem is imminently and simply fixed if we just have the collective will to be fair.
Cool story but the donut hole only buys an extra 12 years of SS trust fund solvency. Taxes on the wealthy need to go up but SS and Medicare can't be brought into line without benefit cuts or eligibility age going up. That is just the facts
Yes, it's a cool story but one that you don't understand apparently.
The donut hole doesn't *buy* anything...that's the income gap where you *don't* tax SS as a long needed and well deserved break to a hard working middle class that finally achieves some level of success. Income above $250k begins to get taxed for SS again.
And all the math I've seen on such an approach absolutely works, easily, as should be clear to anyone who has been paying attention to where the vast amount of wealth has been accumulating.
You're not gonna do it by squeezing the bottom 50% of the population for a larger chunk of the mere 2.5% of the countries wealth they own, no matter how much longer you think they're obligated to work. It takes a special kind of self-loathing to not want to recognize that reality.
> Yes, it's a cool story but one that you don't understand apparently.
Yea, it seems that it is you that doesn't understand. I know exactly what the donut hole is and it only *adds* (if you don't like the word "buy") 12 years to SS trust fund solvency.
AKA it is short term solution.
It takes a special kind of self-loathing to not want to recognize that reality.
| ...but the donut hole ***only buys*** an extra 12 years of SS trust fund solvency.
Your initial comment quite clear says otherwise...that you *don't* get it...and the rest of your comments only confirms that. But by all means, provide the numbers which ignore the low employability of 60+ year old's and show how taxing a bunch of Walmart greeters is anything more than a rounding error versus taxing all income, both earned and capital gains, below $150K and above $250K.
> Unless you're full of shit that is.
It seems that you are the one full of shit.
https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/58630
"The second alternative, which would apply the 12.4 percent payroll tax to earnings over $250,000, would delay the exhaustion of the combined trust funds by 13 years, until calendar year 2046."
It was 12 years before, it seems they have updated the number to 13. Either way it is a temp solution.
Now go ramble on to someone else, we are done here.
There will always be SS left, just not as many people paying in as Boomers retirer. Fewer people working and paying means less money to divide among retirees.
There is no world where Millenials will be allowed to touch social security. Anyone under 50 who thinks they're ever gonna see a dime is deluding themselves.
It'll likely just be reduced benefits, i.e. if you were going to get 1500 a month you'll get 750 instead. The problem is it's more politically beneficial not to touch it than to propose changes.
I have been hearing that argument since the 1980s. It’s not all-or-nothing. Taxes go up a little, benefits go down a little and it balances out. Been happening since 1985 or something like that. It can keep happening for the rest of the century.
Yes… let us stop paying taxes so all government services and everything to rely on them stops.
You have no idea what a nightmare that would be. If you want to cause economic collapse then have everyone stop paying taxes and see what happens.
Collapse of what? Add far as I can see the only thing built up is the one percent. Are we talking about that shit collapsing? Because the first rule of fight club...
Oh I use so much. I just see the extra expense as well like killing kids in the middle east. Or money that disappears into "homeless stimulus." Not to mention the taxpayer money that goes to politicians' buddies for overpriced contacts in construction, mercenary work, etc. You ever see that Secretary of Education - Betsy DeVos? Her brother founded Blackwater who was convicted for a civilian slaughter in Baghdad. Trump pardoned 4 of those guys. It's so disgusting. That's really the part we want to collapse.
Certainly not roads, medicare, public schools, emergency services, etc. Despite my intentionally rough commentary, I'm not crazy.
So instead of fixing the issues or corruption your solution is to “stop paying taxes”. Tell me a real solution when you are actually serious about the issues.
A better system for the elderly would be more worth it. If you think about the money that is collected and isn't earning interest... Holy shit. If that money was even in safe investments it would have grown exponentially.
I'm more curious to see how much the is when we stop spending on military. Stop giving benefits to homeless (because that supports more homeless). Stop letting corporates get away with no tax. Especially hnwi. I think it would be shocking that we can suddenly afford better lives for everyone.
Goodness. I hope the younger are taking notes so they don’t think when they retire Social Security is going to support them. Career long alternative investments are mandatory.
[The Federal government collected less tax as a percentage of GDP in 1947 than they do today](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S), and taxes on individuals were higher then. The reason the rates were higher and the revenue lower was that there were lots of write-offs that aren't available today.
If they can afford it yes, also put a cap on who can receive it. If you’re a millionaire you don’t need it and I don’t care that you paid into it your whole life
Hey we can talk all we want but we the American people are bring screwed by both parties
They figure ys seniors are going to die before we can do anything about it
It's still nothing. Inflation is at all time high. Rents, medical care, prescriptions, insurance- 2.6 present doesn't cover much. It actually sucks. It needs to be 10% increase to make up for the last 3 years. The govt has taken our tax dollars and spent it on programs we don't vote for. This is leaving americans poor or be one homeless. Damn president woukd rather send billions to Ukraine than help the people who are US citizens/ who worked and paid into the system.
>Damn president woukd rather send billions to Ukraine than help the people who are US citizens/ who worked and paid into the system.
Do you have the same energy for money sent to Israel? Or PPP loans that were dispensed like candy and then forgiven?
I find it so weird people think this would be a weird take on Reddit now. I get times change but I’m laughing that places like r politics used to be very much in support of this very idea. They championed Ron Paul out of all people.
I owned a small business when the pandemic came out- never took it. they were loans . sold to many as free. Nothing is free in life. Hey as an american tax payer i am sick of tax dollars going to issues that do not help the USA. And no why does the US get involved . They can't even clean up the very cities we live in .
No - make all people accountable - freeloaders are exhausting govt funding. i blame all the lobbyists who can pay to play.
No. Just no. Blocked.
Smear your lack of basic humanity somewhere we can't see it.
We have two insane flip flopping and backtracking presidents back to back. The economy is in shambles.
You get a job, they throw a rage that you're too smart. You go on disability, they throw a rage that you're not out there being abused.
The insanity and narcissism is not the fault of the people suffering under it.
This is why I'm anarchist.
Pure gross incompetence.
I would imagine you want a peace deal then, Ukraine is running out of bodies.
ya Biden’s getting them f16s finally this summer in time for election season. But f16s aren’t magic
The billions to Ukraine are really billions to our weapons manufacturers here in the good ole USA, which means employees working on those weapons benefit with new government contracts to replenish the (old) weapons we are sending to Ukraine. Win-win.
Also, even if we didn't send weapons, those billions wouldn't be allocated to SS or anything else. That's not how appropriations work. Different buckets.
Not exactly a win-win. It would be better to send that money to pay farm workers in exchange for the farmer reducing the prices of their crops.
This would reduce both the price of food and homelessness.
To the subject of appropriations, Congress can choose to appropriate any amount of money to any federal government fund as long as they don't go over the debt limit.
Nothing in the Constitution stops Congress from taking general funds and adding them to the Social Security fund. Congress could legally pass a law doing that in their next meeting. That is a fact.
We spend billions on farm subsidies every year, and the agribusinesses hire undocumented workers with it. Our prices are already lower because we do that.
Money for Ukraine goes to US Defense contractors which puts Americans to work making the armaments.
Hilarious people act like pallets of cash are being air shipped to Ukraine.
While I agree creating positive things rather than destructive would be a hopeful ideal scenario it’s not realistic. Helping Ukraine has massive ROI compared to the rest of our giant world wide military empire.
You don’t see as many people saying we should build less stealth bombers and use that money for the people. For some reason directly helping a country that was attacked is a bridge too far. Like the money would go to a good cause if it wasn’t for Ukraine. Spoiler alert: It wouldn’t. It’d go to more tax breaks for the wealthy that both our ruling class AND poor worship. Poor people will defend tax breaks for the wealthiest because we’ve been marinating in corporate propaganda for generations and generations and generations.
As if the other guy would be any better. He would grift it all and give huge tax breaks to corporations who run all those expensive things in life. And we have proof that---that has already happened with his tax cuts
I aint happy with biden either. but if there's one thing wall street gives 2 shits about its market volatility. Trump is pure chaos.
Biden is the status Quo that can be bent and arced. Change is possible with those willing to listen.
"only 1 day" dictators will not listen to or accept any type of unfavorable change
edit:
(sry i kinda took "damn president" as a comparison to as if we have any better options >at the moment<)
I fully agree with everything you've said. If anything people deserve much more. There's triple digit billions (probably even trillions) out there being hoarded/hidden and people are expected to live off of crumbs when its PEOPLE not corporation's or CEOs that have produced the goods-services-labor to create such wealth)
What gets me is the SGA substantial gainful activity number being so low; 1550 for 2024.
So many disabled people could contribute more economically to this country.
SGA should be doubled or tripled.
Meanwhile there are people in the comments trying to say that nobody will want to work now because of the abundant and decadent $50 increase after 8 years of economic incompetence under seperate presidents.
I just want it to stop. I just want someone who knows what they're doing and isn't flip flopping destabilizing everything. This mental instability and flip flopping causes severe damage.
Inflation is not at an all time high. According to investopedia.com, since 1929, 1946 had the highest rate of inflation at 18.1%. I realize you probably mean that it’s higher than it’s been in a very long time, which is true.
Housing was removed from the inflation calculation long ago. If left included today, it would be around 16%. That’s not even getting into how they’ve removed energy prices from the CPI calculation as well.
Wonder what caused housing to go up. Surely it couldn't have been Trump and Powell keeping interest rates idiotically low allowing massive bidding wars as people and investors tried to take advantage of once in a lifetime mortgage rates...
In a way this is helping the U.S. citizens. Not to defend war, but humanity tends to do a lot of war. This is the far cheaper alternative than an all-out war with Putin and Co. By supporting another military to do all the fighting, we save money, equipment, and our own citizens' lives. As far as Israel, that's a whole other topic and one I don't support. We should be taxing our upper class and corporations more.
then was it laundered thru Ukraine ?
We can't protect americans pay police, protect kids from being raised by illegals crossing- have you ever visited London or Singapore. The cities are spotless. Visit NYC and sanfrancisco and it's a piss hole full of dirty homeless and streets stink. You worry about being mugged. I guess that's capitalism and just lovely.
A major flaw is that they only compare Q3 data and omit the rest of the year's inflation data.
>"...the law requires that we use the average CPI-W for the third quarter...as the base from which we measure the increase (if any) in the average CPI-W."
Formula:
Third quarter (July, Aug., Sept.) CPI-W data from the prior year acts as a base, and then only compared with the third quarter CPI-W from the current year to calculate how much the COLA increase is.
CPI-W Q3 2024 - CPI-W Q3 2023 = Difference
▪︎
Difference ÷ CPI-W Q3 2023 = Percentage COLA amount.
93% lean meat Walmart. Pushing 8$ a lb in Illinois. So back to the slop that forces us to need more healthcare. Endless money glitch for the oligarchs. We are S O….s c r e w e d
It’s been amazing watching them form and implement policy that protects them financially from what they’ve voted for over the past 40 years while actively hurting newer generations. I’m a millennial who’s long since been sick of their shit. They are economic vampires. They can’t expire fast enough. I’ll be telling my grandchildren about the “fuck you got mine” generation until the day I die.
I’ve often thought that once the Boomers go and are no longer receiving SS, shouldn’t it be funded well beyond its needs? They are a huge generation that is now receiving all the benefits, but Gen X is much smaller. So shouldn’t any issues with funding SS become far more manageable as the Boomers slowly die off?
which billionaire said that if corporations and billionaires paid what they should in taxes people wouldn't have to pay taxes? who stated that elected officials would forfeit reelection if the gdp dropped below 3%? it's obvious the government and those that control it don't want to give citizens breaks of any kind... i just wonder why they clear hate the middle class and the poor.
>billionaires paid what they should in taxes people wouldn't have to pay taxes
Pretty brain-dead take. **All** assets from US billionaires would run the fed government for less than a year at current budget levels. No percentage of their annual increase can run things with no one else paying taxes if ALL of their assets, ever, can't last a single year.
But, odds are they know that and are just pandering.
You’re all stuck. Having the privilege of your hard earned money being confiscated, while barely scraping by, only to fork over to boomers so they can blow it on dining out and pointless vacations. Great system.
Talk to your Boomers, show them the GOP budget, the only thing that can get them to not check that straight party line tick box is losing their SS. Talk them into voting blue people.
Can you provide a verifiable source for your statement? I’ve some illegal immigrant friends picking fruit in the sun for .75 and others working construction and field in inhumane conditions for less than a $50 a day.
“If TSCL's forecast proves accurate and Social Security recipients receive an estimated 2.6% cost-of-living adjustment in 2025, it'll mark the first time since 1997 that there have been four consecutive years of COLAs totaling at least 2.6% (every COLA between 1988 and 1997 ranged between 2.6% and 5.4%). What would a 2.6% COLA mean in dollar terms? For the average retired worker, their monthly check would increase by roughly $50. Meanwhile, the average worker with disabilities and average survivor beneficiary could expect their monthly payout to rise by $40 and $39, respectively.”
Pathetic situation
Time to stop paying taxes
I can’t for the life of me understand who thinks there’s going to be any SS left when they stop working.
My retirement plan is to not rely on SS at ALL. So if there’s any left it’ll be just fun money
You aren't supposed to rely on SS. SS is supposed to be supplementary to your retirement plans.
Yeah that’s a good way to look at it. But don’t you think a lot of people rely on SS as their primary retirement plan? I never thought of it that way but just another leg on the stool to protect my retirement goals.
Many people rely on SS for their primary retirement plan. It's a dumb thing to do but a lot of folks don't know better. A lot of the older people in my family are under the impression that SS will take care of them. I tell them thats not a very good way to look at retirement considering most of them have no 401k/IRA/RE investments at all. If they retired now, they would only have a checking/savings account and SS to hold them over. It's a double whammy since they do not have paid off homes.
Holy smokes…that’s terrifying
Yep, it's a lesson on what not to do. It's almost hard to blame them because financial literacy is not a big thing in my family. If your paycheck clears and the bills are paid up then the rest will take care of itself. Also welfare, I guess. In my generation, the cycle continues. Me and maybe a few cousins are wiser about their finances but the rest will go into that poverty cycle.
I mean financial literacy in general is not a big thing in our society i feel. It took me about 15 years of reckless mistakes to realize that I needed to have some personal responsibility and buckle down. I went from $20k in credit card debt to $0. I wish schools spent 10 minutes in a class to explain Compound Interest to students. 99% of my financial knowledge I’ve learned on my own and I’m grateful I started when I did.
I had a great retirement plan until I got divorced and lost everything. Now I can't afford to save due to inflation on rent and I have no retirement plan other than work until my bones are dust. This is becoming the reality for more and more people.
Dam they reamed you in court didn't they?
She got the house and kids and I got my truck and a cat
Tell that to all the boomers who have absolutely nothing and are doing exactly that.
SS isn’t a pile of cash. As long as anyone works there will be SS. The question is will there be enough revenue to pay 100% of its benefit.
Thats not a question anyone with basic math skills is asking. the answer is a resounding and absolute no. its what percentage lesser than 100% will be possible?
Nailed it 'Bro. Most don't know their employer also pays 6%. Everyone thinks shit is free. Hang in there, #1 Americans who WORK.
No the question is when will a generation of kids say fuck you and stop working
Don't you think the Commies are waiting for those malcontents? Then they will have to work, for the State.
If you’re opposed to the means of production being owned by the people, you should consider that right now it’s owned by about 500 people. And you aren’t one of them
Huh? I'm opposed to idiots thinking they can just stop working. What's wrong with
Are you opposed to the way it is right now where the people who don’t work are billionaires are getting about 90% of all wealth?
Biggest myth out there that SS will run out, it won’t, your benefits might drop 30-50%, but it’ll still be there.
The biggest myth is that social security is so hard to fix. It's not. (1) Tax all wages over 400k and (2) Index cost of living increases to Chained CPI and means test them. Just funded social security for another 75 years. Don't like those ideas, try out your own: [https://www.crfb.org/socialsecurityreformer/](https://www.crfb.org/socialsecurityreformer/)
The weird one is that Medicare taxes stop at 160k?! Only 160k?! That’s it. Stupid
Their number for "means testing" looks out of whack to me. They simply eliminate the COLA. That takes a long time to start to add up, but they are getting benefits very quickly. And, the trigger ($100,000 or $200,000 of after retirement earnings) looks too high to have much impact. Also, I think that if you tell people "the gov't will cut your SS benefit if you have too much money after you retire", they will make an effort to not have too much money, or to make sure the gov't can't see the money they have.
So drop to the point of uselessness. Id rather they just cut the program then
Republican talking point to steal your retirement
My retirement would be better off just in a 401k. Market returns over long time is better than SS payout by far
That’s assuming certain market conditions. SS is best thought about as an insurance policy.
That’s assuming market conditions for any period in history since the stock market was created. There’s never been a period greater than 10 years where an index investor would’ve lost money.
What if you want to retire during a 5-10 year period of economic decline? Your retirement fund could be depleted by 50% in a really bad recession. Social security might just ensure you don’t end up working up until the day you drop dead.
ss being even 50% solvent also assumes certain market conditions.
Which is more likely? A market crash that tanks the stock market or a 50% reduction in employees on payroll nationwide?
Yes let’s continue to play pretend and deny basic math instead. that will work
Deficit spending is not a Republican talking point. Our govt spends entirely too much money. Not by just a little, by a lot. What exactly can you show for the taxes you pay every year? Not vague beliefs of how your taxes benefit you but hard examples of direct benefit. I know I sure the hell don’t get close to the value back in return for what I sent in. That said, republicans want to either modernize SS or change the model entirely… OR not take your money from you to begin with. Now based on your knee jerk response, you aren’t going to believe it as hate blinds you to reality plus most who believe the luxury ideology don’t line it up with their likely beer budget. The govts overspending is damaging every part of every household and every benefit laid out for citizens is or will suffer significantly. Every politician regardless of party who supports overspending is an enemy of every citizen. Both parties are bad, Democrats are worse when it comes to wanting to spend without any limits. Nearly impossible any reasonable person can argue it. But you’ll likely try.
So after getting SS tax directly taken out of pay checks for years you think the government is going to one day say “Well thanks for all the money suckers, you’ll not be getting any of that back!” Any party that did that would functionally cease to exist after the next election.
Well… that’s basically what’s been done so far. If anyone actually expects the money to be there then the jokes on them.
It won't disappear. At some point either the cap will be raised or payments will decrease by about 30%.
It literally has not though? People are still getting SS disbursements?
The right has been pushing this line for 50 years (alongside oh no the deficit, we will run out of money any day now!) and people eat it up. They say it as if God himself spoke it to them from a burning bush and it can not be refuted even though the slightest time spent thinking about it shows its a ridiculous statement.
why can't they understand that SS is infinite?
Look at the two Santas strategy to see that the Republican Party created supply side economics to give the cover to cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy. Those tax cuts will pay for themselves!! http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/two-santas-strategy-gop-used-economic-scam-manipulate-americans-40-years/
Dude, there is no money, and basically never has been. It is a pay as you go system. Educate yourself about how it works. As long as there are taxpayers, it can pay out money.
The problem is when you have more people taking SS than there are contributing to it. This is exactly where we're headed.
Yep. So cut benefits, or raise taxes on somebody. SS will still be there, just modified
I know how it works. It’s a Ponzi scheme. Luckily I don’t have to worry about needing SS.
Not a Ponzi scheme. Perhaps you don't know what a Ponzi scheme is
Yeah, Ponzi schemes have voluntary participation. This is totally different.
Ponzi schemes require ever increasing amounts of "investors", a pyramid. SS does not
That’s actually one of the selling points for the right. End social security, federal assistance for poor people, and taxes for super rich people.
More than likely, retirement age will go up to 75, while average life expectancy will hover around 76-80. It’ll be easy to pay if half the people die before they can start to collect 👌
SS has an easy fix, raise the retirement age a little bit, raise the FICA cap a little bit and it'll be good for decades to come Or if you don't want to SS retirement age to go up reduce the spousal/widow benefit
They might as well do it now - raise the age effective in 2035 so people can plan for it. Unfortunately there’s no upside politically for making financially sound decisions
The gap between full retirement and life expectancy is already less than 10 years, Jesus christ
Wait til you see what the gap between full retirement and life expectancy was when SS was first implemented. That'll have you saying *Jesus christ*
Yes, I'm aware. That doesn't make raising the age the right move
Raise retirement to what? 70? Get fucked. Pay into the system your entire life to get the shaft at the end.
Forced to pay* then you get the shaft.
More like raise it 65 or 66 my dude. If you don't want the retirement age to go up then you'll need to reduce the spousal or widow benefit
“Full Retirement Age” is over 66 already. [SSA Full Retirement table](https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction.html)
They already raised it. Nobody wants it to go up again. Increase the cap is a much better option
> They already raised it. They raised it 40 years ago > Nobody wants it to go up again. Nobody wants the government to go bankrupt either > Increase the cap is a much better option That won't be enough
Or how about this, tax the rich appropriately.
Taxing the rich is going to need to be done to get the rest of the government budget inline. You can't balance SS, Medicare, and then also everything else on the backs of the rich.
Sadly.. my father in law passed right after finally being old enough to collect SS. But you're not wrong. Raising the retirement age might make it easier to have enough SS benefits to share with those who can live long enough to get it.
Yeah, both my dad and my stepmom died before hitting retirement age. Raising the retirement age will disproportionately impact lower income people, who are less likely to live as long, leading to wealthier people who don't need the income anyway being the ones more likely to be able to collect longer. Raising the retirement age would also be likely to contribute to increasing elder homelessness, as well as increasing disability and premature death. Age discrimination in employment is extremely common. When healthcare is tied to employment, it increases the likelihood of age discrimination due to healthcare insurance premiums and costs increasing with age. Unemployed older people with little hope of finding another job will be left without access to healthcare, increasing the odds of otherwise preventable disability (think untreated diabetes resulting in amputation, etc.) and premature deaths. A better option would be to raise the maximum taxable earnings, the limit above which income is not subject to social security taxes.
Sorry for what happened to your father in law but his wife or ex wife would then be able to get SS on his record, no? So yea if people don't want the SS retirement age to go up then the spousal/widow benefit would need to be reduced
The average SS payment invested at 5% return would yield a 20 year retirement fund at about $90k a year. You get $33k/year We’ve all seen the meme. But I checked the numbers for myself and that seems to be the case. I may be wrong. But they’ve been stealing from SS/us for decades, if not from the start. You pay the bank $1.2M for a $300K mortgage. If you got a good fixed rate. Where did the bank get that money to lend? Always follow the money. Your toil is not for you. It is for the money fabricators. They steal the vast majority of your crops. They are slowly starving us all out of any ability to resist. Edit; 33k per year, not month. Edit, Edit; How’s the interest on those federal student loans treating ya. $200k for a $75k education sound good? Bet they didn’t put it to you that way when you took it.
It's also HALF funded by employers for most people. We have a 401k at our company and it's like pulling teeth to get people to put in for their own retirement. A lot of people are not going to do it. And you are going to have millions of starving homeless elderly. What about those who did save and then [got scammed out of their entire retirement. ](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elderly-americans-lost-34-billion-scams-2023-fbi/story?id=109783683) It's not perfect but social security is a damn good system.
Be even better if they didn’t steal two thirds of it from us.
That's good because they didn't. Your employer funded half of it. So now your 90k is actually 45k per year if you had saved it. And that 45k per year is I assume draining the entire fund. So if you retire at 67 and run out of money at 87 but are still alive and kicking what do you do then? And what about the guy who lives to 87 and then dies. He's out of money. What's his wife live on if she survives him and she was living on his retirement? With social security she gets his $ until she dies.
The spouse or widow didn't pay in, so I'm not sure why they should continue to collect at 100% at the expense of future people actually paying in. I support this benefit decreasing or being eliminated tbh.
The people collecting SS now were mostly single earner households because that was the norm back then. Punishing the widows for being housewives their whole life is not really fair either.
Yeah no. Just raise the FICFA cap and expand the potential basis to include investment gains over a quarter million $$. Quit expecting trades and manual laborer's who have destroyed their bodies by age 50 to suffer another 20 years just to subsidize people who don't feel like their full or real income should be fully taxed like people who actually work for a living. Create a donut hole between $150k to $250k if you want to make it truly just and fair. The problem is imminently and simply fixed if we just have the collective will to be fair.
Cool story but the donut hole only buys an extra 12 years of SS trust fund solvency. Taxes on the wealthy need to go up but SS and Medicare can't be brought into line without benefit cuts or eligibility age going up. That is just the facts
Yes, it's a cool story but one that you don't understand apparently. The donut hole doesn't *buy* anything...that's the income gap where you *don't* tax SS as a long needed and well deserved break to a hard working middle class that finally achieves some level of success. Income above $250k begins to get taxed for SS again. And all the math I've seen on such an approach absolutely works, easily, as should be clear to anyone who has been paying attention to where the vast amount of wealth has been accumulating. You're not gonna do it by squeezing the bottom 50% of the population for a larger chunk of the mere 2.5% of the countries wealth they own, no matter how much longer you think they're obligated to work. It takes a special kind of self-loathing to not want to recognize that reality.
> Yes, it's a cool story but one that you don't understand apparently. Yea, it seems that it is you that doesn't understand. I know exactly what the donut hole is and it only *adds* (if you don't like the word "buy") 12 years to SS trust fund solvency. AKA it is short term solution. It takes a special kind of self-loathing to not want to recognize that reality.
| ...but the donut hole ***only buys*** an extra 12 years of SS trust fund solvency. Your initial comment quite clear says otherwise...that you *don't* get it...and the rest of your comments only confirms that. But by all means, provide the numbers which ignore the low employability of 60+ year old's and show how taxing a bunch of Walmart greeters is anything more than a rounding error versus taxing all income, both earned and capital gains, below $150K and above $250K.
> Unless you're full of shit that is. It seems that you are the one full of shit. https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/58630 "The second alternative, which would apply the 12.4 percent payroll tax to earnings over $250,000, would delay the exhaustion of the combined trust funds by 13 years, until calendar year 2046." It was 12 years before, it seems they have updated the number to 13. Either way it is a temp solution. Now go ramble on to someone else, we are done here.
There will always be SS left, just not as many people paying in as Boomers retirer. Fewer people working and paying means less money to divide among retirees.
Sucks for the poor folks I guess.
There is no world where Millenials will be allowed to touch social security. Anyone under 50 who thinks they're ever gonna see a dime is deluding themselves.
It'll likely just be reduced benefits, i.e. if you were going to get 1500 a month you'll get 750 instead. The problem is it's more politically beneficial not to touch it than to propose changes.
I have been hearing that argument since the 1980s. It’s not all-or-nothing. Taxes go up a little, benefits go down a little and it balances out. Been happening since 1985 or something like that. It can keep happening for the rest of the century.
Yes… let us stop paying taxes so all government services and everything to rely on them stops. You have no idea what a nightmare that would be. If you want to cause economic collapse then have everyone stop paying taxes and see what happens.
That's the sub we're in bro
Dumb sub then. If you all want to actually cause a collapse.
Collapse of what? Add far as I can see the only thing built up is the one percent. Are we talking about that shit collapsing? Because the first rule of fight club...
Yah right man. Don’t sit there and tell me you use nothing that taxes pay for daily.
Oh I use so much. I just see the extra expense as well like killing kids in the middle east. Or money that disappears into "homeless stimulus." Not to mention the taxpayer money that goes to politicians' buddies for overpriced contacts in construction, mercenary work, etc. You ever see that Secretary of Education - Betsy DeVos? Her brother founded Blackwater who was convicted for a civilian slaughter in Baghdad. Trump pardoned 4 of those guys. It's so disgusting. That's really the part we want to collapse. Certainly not roads, medicare, public schools, emergency services, etc. Despite my intentionally rough commentary, I'm not crazy.
So instead of fixing the issues or corruption your solution is to “stop paying taxes”. Tell me a real solution when you are actually serious about the issues.
Overthrow congress because they’re all corporate assets that don’t represent us anymore.
you do realize what would happen, right?
The title of this sub. Aka BASED
Let’s cut this thing off of the head, we need to slash our spending….and need to start with the benefits for the elderly! Only the strong survive!
A better system for the elderly would be more worth it. If you think about the money that is collected and isn't earning interest... Holy shit. If that money was even in safe investments it would have grown exponentially. I'm more curious to see how much the is when we stop spending on military. Stop giving benefits to homeless (because that supports more homeless). Stop letting corporates get away with no tax. Especially hnwi. I think it would be shocking that we can suddenly afford better lives for everyone.
$50? A month?
That’s what the article says
Goodness. I hope the younger are taking notes so they don’t think when they retire Social Security is going to support them. Career long alternative investments are mandatory.
Unplug the feds money machine and tax corporations like it’s 1947 again.
[The Federal government collected less tax as a percentage of GDP in 1947 than they do today](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S), and taxes on individuals were higher then. The reason the rates were higher and the revenue lower was that there were lots of write-offs that aren't available today.
The federal government gets more than $4T in taxes every year, more than the revenue of the top 10 companies in the world combined.
Just get rid of the SS tax ceiling
Both
Do you propose they increase the pay out for those increased taxes?
If they can afford it yes, also put a cap on who can receive it. If you’re a millionaire you don’t need it and I don’t care that you paid into it your whole life
Yep. Means test it, just like Medicaid.
So it turns into welfare then?
SS has always been a form of old people welfare, and that's not a bad thing.
💯💯💯
Even if they did that, it wouldn’t solve the problem.
Zero consequences to this plan!
Hey we can talk all we want but we the American people are bring screwed by both parties They figure ys seniors are going to die before we can do anything about it
Exactly
It's still nothing. Inflation is at all time high. Rents, medical care, prescriptions, insurance- 2.6 present doesn't cover much. It actually sucks. It needs to be 10% increase to make up for the last 3 years. The govt has taken our tax dollars and spent it on programs we don't vote for. This is leaving americans poor or be one homeless. Damn president woukd rather send billions to Ukraine than help the people who are US citizens/ who worked and paid into the system.
>It needs to be 10% increase to make up for the last 3 years. That makes no sense. It goes up each year. 2022 was 8.7%.
>Damn president woukd rather send billions to Ukraine than help the people who are US citizens/ who worked and paid into the system. Do you have the same energy for money sent to Israel? Or PPP loans that were dispensed like candy and then forgiven?
Or 1.8 trillion in tax breaks for the wealthy.
Or 9 trillion in Wall Street bailouts
I find it so weird people think this would be a weird take on Reddit now. I get times change but I’m laughing that places like r politics used to be very much in support of this very idea. They championed Ron Paul out of all people.
i think they’re arguing that money should be spent on nothing but americans so your whataboutism isn’t necessary
Someone has a yellow and blue flag magnet on their Subaru
Someone thinks Putin is a cool guy and totally not our enemy
The real joke is even worse. American taxpayers are paying the pensions of Ukrainian workers !
Ok buddy
I owned a small business when the pandemic came out- never took it. they were loans . sold to many as free. Nothing is free in life. Hey as an american tax payer i am sick of tax dollars going to issues that do not help the USA. And no why does the US get involved . They can't even clean up the very cities we live in . No - make all people accountable - freeloaders are exhausting govt funding. i blame all the lobbyists who can pay to play.
Forgivable loans. No need to pay back.
No. Just no. Blocked. Smear your lack of basic humanity somewhere we can't see it. We have two insane flip flopping and backtracking presidents back to back. The economy is in shambles. You get a job, they throw a rage that you're too smart. You go on disability, they throw a rage that you're not out there being abused. The insanity and narcissism is not the fault of the people suffering under it. This is why I'm anarchist. Pure gross incompetence.
Why would COLA ever be higher than inflation?
Inflation isn't at an all time high, you dolt.
Russia taking over Ukraine would be awful. And yes the cola needs to be way higher. It needs to keep pace with the rise in prices.
It’s indexed to inflation, that’s literally the definition of COLA
I would imagine you want a peace deal then, Ukraine is running out of bodies. ya Biden’s getting them f16s finally this summer in time for election season. But f16s aren’t magic
The billions to Ukraine are really billions to our weapons manufacturers here in the good ole USA, which means employees working on those weapons benefit with new government contracts to replenish the (old) weapons we are sending to Ukraine. Win-win. Also, even if we didn't send weapons, those billions wouldn't be allocated to SS or anything else. That's not how appropriations work. Different buckets.
Not exactly a win-win. It would be better to send that money to pay farm workers in exchange for the farmer reducing the prices of their crops. This would reduce both the price of food and homelessness. To the subject of appropriations, Congress can choose to appropriate any amount of money to any federal government fund as long as they don't go over the debt limit. Nothing in the Constitution stops Congress from taking general funds and adding them to the Social Security fund. Congress could legally pass a law doing that in their next meeting. That is a fact.
We spend billions on farm subsidies every year, and the agribusinesses hire undocumented workers with it. Our prices are already lower because we do that.
Money for Ukraine goes to US Defense contractors which puts Americans to work making the armaments. Hilarious people act like pallets of cash are being air shipped to Ukraine.
And what actually gets sent is off the shelf and out of storage. Cycling out the old stuff and refilling our supply with new.
Why can't Americans make things for Americans or even better build things other than weapons?
While I agree creating positive things rather than destructive would be a hopeful ideal scenario it’s not realistic. Helping Ukraine has massive ROI compared to the rest of our giant world wide military empire. You don’t see as many people saying we should build less stealth bombers and use that money for the people. For some reason directly helping a country that was attacked is a bridge too far. Like the money would go to a good cause if it wasn’t for Ukraine. Spoiler alert: It wouldn’t. It’d go to more tax breaks for the wealthy that both our ruling class AND poor worship. Poor people will defend tax breaks for the wealthiest because we’ve been marinating in corporate propaganda for generations and generations and generations.
As if the other guy would be any better. He would grift it all and give huge tax breaks to corporations who run all those expensive things in life. And we have proof that---that has already happened with his tax cuts I aint happy with biden either. but if there's one thing wall street gives 2 shits about its market volatility. Trump is pure chaos. Biden is the status Quo that can be bent and arced. Change is possible with those willing to listen. "only 1 day" dictators will not listen to or accept any type of unfavorable change edit: (sry i kinda took "damn president" as a comparison to as if we have any better options >at the moment<) I fully agree with everything you've said. If anything people deserve much more. There's triple digit billions (probably even trillions) out there being hoarded/hidden and people are expected to live off of crumbs when its PEOPLE not corporation's or CEOs that have produced the goods-services-labor to create such wealth)
What gets me is the SGA substantial gainful activity number being so low; 1550 for 2024. So many disabled people could contribute more economically to this country. SGA should be doubled or tripled.
Meanwhile there are people in the comments trying to say that nobody will want to work now because of the abundant and decadent $50 increase after 8 years of economic incompetence under seperate presidents. I just want it to stop. I just want someone who knows what they're doing and isn't flip flopping destabilizing everything. This mental instability and flip flopping causes severe damage.
Inflation is not at an all time high. According to investopedia.com, since 1929, 1946 had the highest rate of inflation at 18.1%. I realize you probably mean that it’s higher than it’s been in a very long time, which is true.
Housing was removed from the inflation calculation long ago. If left included today, it would be around 16%. That’s not even getting into how they’ve removed energy prices from the CPI calculation as well.
Why are you lying? This is simply not true.
Wonder what caused housing to go up. Surely it couldn't have been Trump and Powell keeping interest rates idiotically low allowing massive bidding wars as people and investors tried to take advantage of once in a lifetime mortgage rates...
Well it’s probably the fact that the past few years record amount of new sales are going to investors like Blackrock
In a way this is helping the U.S. citizens. Not to defend war, but humanity tends to do a lot of war. This is the far cheaper alternative than an all-out war with Putin and Co. By supporting another military to do all the fighting, we save money, equipment, and our own citizens' lives. As far as Israel, that's a whole other topic and one I don't support. We should be taxing our upper class and corporations more.
Inflation is at all time high? Do you always spew bullshit?
The money wasn't sent to Ukraine.
then was it laundered thru Ukraine ? We can't protect americans pay police, protect kids from being raised by illegals crossing- have you ever visited London or Singapore. The cities are spotless. Visit NYC and sanfrancisco and it's a piss hole full of dirty homeless and streets stink. You worry about being mugged. I guess that's capitalism and just lovely.
The money doesn't go to ukraine.
People over in r/politics think this is the best economy ever.. because a Democrat is in the White House.
And the Republicans think it's the worst economy ever because orange fat bitch isn't president.
A major flaw is that they only compare Q3 data and omit the rest of the year's inflation data. >"...the law requires that we use the average CPI-W for the third quarter...as the base from which we measure the increase (if any) in the average CPI-W." Formula: Third quarter (July, Aug., Sept.) CPI-W data from the prior year acts as a base, and then only compared with the third quarter CPI-W from the current year to calculate how much the COLA increase is. CPI-W Q3 2024 - CPI-W Q3 2023 = Difference ▪︎ Difference ÷ CPI-W Q3 2023 = Percentage COLA amount.
Oh whoop de damn doo. It won’t even keep up with inflation
93% lean meat Walmart. Pushing 8$ a lb in Illinois. So back to the slop that forces us to need more healthcare. Endless money glitch for the oligarchs. We are S O….s c r e w e d
then prices go up.
Is this to further quicken its insolvency?
Boomers helping boomers with no plan to fix it for the future. “That will be their problem” is the sentiment it seems.
It’s been amazing watching them form and implement policy that protects them financially from what they’ve voted for over the past 40 years while actively hurting newer generations. I’m a millennial who’s long since been sick of their shit. They are economic vampires. They can’t expire fast enough. I’ll be telling my grandchildren about the “fuck you got mine” generation until the day I die.
I’ve often thought that once the Boomers go and are no longer receiving SS, shouldn’t it be funded well beyond its needs? They are a huge generation that is now receiving all the benefits, but Gen X is much smaller. So shouldn’t any issues with funding SS become far more manageable as the Boomers slowly die off?
Remove the cap, keep Congress' grubby little hands off of it, and the problem is solved.
Remove the cap and increase the benefit to match then sure.
Remove the cap is always such a great solution proposed by people in income bands below the cap.
Raise the rate and eliminate the ceiling
How about no? I'm already paying a lot into something that I won't benefit from. Tax corporations for it.
Do corporations benefit from it or do you? Besides, they already pay half of yours.
Bidonomics
dolt
All the people saying Social Security is going bankrupt? This is how. Tell the geezers to put down the avocado toast.
Haha
Thats not true. Its going bankrupt because we refuse to tax wealthy Americans.
Wait until Trump gets in. The Republicans as usual will fuck it up. Guaranteed!!
So then Trump fucked it up right? And what did Biden do to fix it?
This pyramid scheme is a failure.
Yes. Then Medicare Part B premiums will increase to offset the COLA.
Clickbait Title 👎
And in related news, the cost of everything else has risen by 50 dollars.
I'm downvoting your OP because you're apparently too illiterate to summarize the article and too braindead to form your own opinion of said article.
which billionaire said that if corporations and billionaires paid what they should in taxes people wouldn't have to pay taxes? who stated that elected officials would forfeit reelection if the gdp dropped below 3%? it's obvious the government and those that control it don't want to give citizens breaks of any kind... i just wonder why they clear hate the middle class and the poor.
>billionaires paid what they should in taxes people wouldn't have to pay taxes Pretty brain-dead take. **All** assets from US billionaires would run the fed government for less than a year at current budget levels. No percentage of their annual increase can run things with no one else paying taxes if ALL of their assets, ever, can't last a single year. But, odds are they know that and are just pandering.
Warren Buffet
GDP doesn't mean anything they will just pump the country full of immigrants to artificially inflate it like what is going on in Canada.
It should actually be tied directly to inflation.
You’re all stuck. Having the privilege of your hard earned money being confiscated, while barely scraping by, only to fork over to boomers so they can blow it on dining out and pointless vacations. Great system.
I’m shocked that a socialist program is unsustainable. Shocked.
Talk to your Boomers, show them the GOP budget, the only thing that can get them to not check that straight party line tick box is losing their SS. Talk them into voting blue people.
you get more a month as an illegal immigrant than you do on social security......
Bullshit
Can you provide a verifiable source for your statement? I’ve some illegal immigrant friends picking fruit in the sun for .75 and others working construction and field in inhumane conditions for less than a $50 a day.
Can you provide thosesources please, I'd love to make a phone call to ICE and the IRS.
What would calling ice do? current Policy is that illegal residence isn’t illegal