Originally Posted By fkurucz "But for God's sake... NEEDS TEST who receives benefits!" No objection to that, as long as we're talking about people who are truly financially independent. Somehow though, I think that the middle class will end up taking it in the shorts ... again.
Originally Posted By Labuda "But for God's sake... NEEDS TEST who receives benefits! I have a real problem with someone in their twenties trying to start a family having to pay higher SS & Medicaid contributions so that some retired guy with 10 million dollars in the bank can collect his lousy 2K per month and have his medical expenses covered by the government. Something is VERY WRONG there." EXCELLENT point, Trippy! Nice to see I can agree with you politically sometimes.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>If you increase the surpluses now it will not be saved for future SS liabilities .. it will just go into the general bugdet like the rest.<< How is this an argument for not fixing it?
Originally Posted By skinnerbox First off, SSA is an insurance program, not general assistance like food stamps. You cannot needs test a retirement program you've paid into for decades. The minute you do that, the lawsuits will begin, and rightfully so. And where would you draw the line, regarding assets and savings? How much is "too much"? Say a senior bought a house 50 years ago for $10K that's now worth $800K (typical for San Francisco). Are you going to deny SSA and Medicare to that senior living in their house, because it's worth "too much"? Are you going to make them sell the house and take that money and rent an apartment in another town or state, away from their family and friends, just so they can collect their small Social Security check? That's nuts. You're also not considering that the expense of attempting to validate assets and savings and how much a home is worth every single year for every single recipient of SSA would be more costly than simply giving the seniors their checks, even if they didn't need it. But most importantly, the percentage of seniors who don't "need" those checks is small. The vast majority of seniors in our nation actually need that money to keep them out of poverty. The percentage of citizens over 65 who aren't sitting on hundreds of thousands or millions in savings and investments is huge and increasing: <a href="http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-best-life/2011/02/14/seniors-near-poverty-at-risk-in-deficit-cuts" target="_blank">http://money.usnews.com/money/...cit-cuts</a> It would be better to raise the payment cap and reduce the contribution percentage in the lower income brackets. Set the percentage for the first $30K earned to 3%, then increase it one percent for every $10K after that, up to $70K. Then all wages above $70K but below $250K would pay 7% (it's currently 6.2%). The vast majority of workers in this country do not earn more than $60K annually. By putting the contribution on a sliding scale, the less you earn, the less you pay. By doing this, the working poor would not get screwed out of money they need right now to survive. And by raising the payment cap and contribution percentage on those who earn six figures, the loss from the rate reduction on the lower incomes would be offset. This is more equitable. Those who earn more should pay more, especially those in the top 10% of wage earners. The wealth in our nation has been shifting upward into their hands for the past three decades. It's time that those individuals start feeling the pain of the failed economy as well.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<First off, SSA is an insurance program, not general assistance like food stamps. You cannot needs test a retirement program you've paid into for decades. The minute you do that, the lawsuits will begin, and rightfully so.>> Like so many retirement programs it is horrendously under-funded. The increased life expectancy since the program was implemented has totally voided the original assumptions on how long the benefit would be paid. Private pension plans resolve this problem by reducing payments for EVERYONE… that is what I want to avoid. I also don't know where you get your statement that the MAJORITY of seniors need the SS payments to keep them out of poverty. Some certainly do, but not a majority. The article you referenced states: <<During the past 40 years, one of the seldom trumpeted successes in the United States has been the enormous reduction in senior poverty. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have provided income and health supports that reduced poverty among people age 65 and older from well over 30 percent to less than 10 percent—the lowest poverty rate of any population group in the country. When the dust cleared from the Great Recession, poverty rates had risen for all groups except the elderly. For that group, the poverty rate fell further, to 9.7 percent in 2009 and 8.9 percent last year. By contrast, the poverty rate among children is roughly twice as high.>> You can see from the charts at this link that the net worth of seniors is CONSIDERABLY higher than any other age group: <a href="http://www.moneyrelationship.com/retirement/the-average-net-worth-of-americans-where-do-you-stand/" target="_blank">http://www.moneyrelationship.c...u-stand/</a> I'm not proposing to take benefits from those who need them. In fact I want to assure that does not happen by making sure the benefits are directed where they are truly needed. If we don't do something benefits for ALL will be reduced. While that won't hurt the wealthy, as you indicated it could be catastrophic for those senior close to poverty. That is what I'm trying to avoid. I also don't see the problem in coming up with a usable asset figure. Financial institutions already report dividends, interest and capital gains. It would not be difficult at all to add year-end balance information to the mix. Although this would not capture assets like homes, art work, etc. you would get a figure that certainly would be a good indication of total net worth. Modifying contributions as you suggest would certainly be a valid approach, but in the end I don’t see that you would be increasing the benefits pool… just changing who paid what. My proposal would actually increase the benefits pool for those in need by not making payments to those who would do very well without them.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>And where would you draw the line, regarding assets and savings? How much is "too much"?<< Which is why I believe the middle class will get clobbered. The bar will be placed low, very low. A lot of people will end up working until they drop dead.
Originally Posted By fkurucz Also regarding SS: If it's disbanded don't expect the payroll tax to disappear. They will use that money to fund more wars.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder I thought Social Security wasn't underfunded, in fact, it would have a surplus if the government didn't raid it all the time for other things.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox First off, I'd like to apologize to RT for screwing up my math. I was not using the Federal poverty guideline of $10,289 for a single senior as my definition of "poverty." Obviously, RT was. And if this is where he wants to draw the line, then yes, less than 10% of seniors are in officially defined "poverty." But if you want to consider "low income" and "near poverty" for the basis of needs testing, which is what I was doing, then the figure is much higher: "The federal poverty level (FPL) for pretax income of people 65 and older was $10,289 for a single individual living alone and $12,968 for a couple with at least one older member, according to a recent analysis of U.S. Census Bureau poverty reports done by the Urban Institute, a Washington-based research nonprofit. People with less income made up the 8.9 percent official poverty rate. In addition, nearly three times that many older Americans lived in what's called "near poverty," with pretax incomes between 100 percent and 199 percent of the FPL. "Of the more than 38 million Americans who were at least 65 years old in 2009, 13 million lived in low-income families, defined as having income less than twice the federal poverty level," the Institute analysis said. Furthermore, the percentages of low-income seniors rise with age. While about a third of all people 65 and older had low incomes in 2009, the total for those ages 75 to 84 was 37.7 percent, and rose to 44.2 percent for people 85 years and older." Over 37% of seniors 75 to 84 years have low incomes. Over 44% of seniors 85 years and older have low incomes. That's well more than one-third of our seniors trying to make ends meet with rising health care, fuel, and food costs. Those seniors would definitely meet any "needs" testing you'd like to conduct for SSA/Medicare qualifications. And what about the rest of the seniors? Even those who are 300% above the Federal poverty line aren't well off. Heck, even 500% above the Federal poverty line isn't all that secure, especially given the added costs of medical care past 65. More than half of the seniors in this country are struggling to make ends meet. They might not all be below the poverty line, but those SSA checks and Medicare are helping to keep them out of poverty. Why waste tax dollars each year putting seniors through means testing, when the vast majority of them would easily pass, since the bulk of their worth is in their homes, which are exempt from means testing, even in determining eligibility for Medicaid. Take away the primary residence, and so-called net worth drops dramatically. Plus, your reference of average net worth from that article is being skewed by the multi-millionaires and billionaires over 65, whose wealth is being factored into the equation: <a href="http://www.forbes.com/wealth/forbes-400/list?ascend=true&sort=rank" target="_blank">http://www.forbes.com/wealth/f...ort=rank</a> What do you think their wealth does to the AVERAGE net worth of Americans older than 65? Obviously, it drives it up. Between 38 and 40 million Americans are 65 years and older. There are over 300 billionaires in that age group, with a combined net worth of almost a trillion dollars. TRILLION with a "T." If you take everyone 65 and older in this country who's not a multi-millionaire or billionaire, add up their net worth and average it, it will be far less than the $232,000 which your article is claiming. That extra trillion dollars being held by a few hundred individuals is going to significantly skew the net worth for everyone else, not to mention another trillion or two held by multi-millionaires over 65. What would be more equitable for everyone, is to raise the FICA payment cap to at least $250,000, if not $500,000. That way, when those multi-millionaires reach their late sixties and start collecting SSA checks, their contributions will more than pay for them, not to mention the working poor who contributed far less. As for SSA being underfunded, that's a myth. SPP is correct. The government keeps raiding the SSA coffers to pay for other things. If they'd leave it alone, there would be a HUGE surplus. H-U-G-E.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox I hear you, Labuda. This whole means testing for SSA and Medicare makes me sick. It's such a small percentage of seniors who are wealthy enough to not need these programs, that it's not worth spending millions of taxpayer dollars each year in determining who deserves it and who doesn't. Plus, most of this so-called wealth is held in the house, which has always been exempt from any means testing, along with personal transportation. You can own a million-dollar house and drive a $100K Mercedes and still qualify for Medicaid, if all of your other assets are gone save for $2000 in the bank. The government does not expect you to sell your car or your house in order to get assistance for food, clothing, utilities, healthcare, and other necessities. But I'm confident that the right wingers will want some kind of means testing for that, eventually. If these heartless conservatives take full control of our government, we'll all be expected to sell our homes for a loss and move to a trailer park, live off the proceeds of that sale until they're gone, then file for our SSA. Never mind the fact that selling our homes and moving far away from family and friends who were helping us with daily tasks of living or simply providing comfort and socialization will make it that much harder to survive. That's not important. What is important, is that we're not receiving those precious payments which the conservatives believe we're not entitled to, even though we paid into an insurance system for decades in order to receive them. If people like RT are so absolutely certain that rich seniors are draining the system, then they should raise the payment cap and take a bigger contribution from them while they're working. But of course, that would be an increase in taxes, and we can't possibly have folks earning more than $106,800 each year paying a bit more in FICA. That would be wrong! Better to stick it to the seniors who can least afford it.
Originally Posted By fkurucz "I thought Social Security wasn't underfunded, in fact, it would have a surplus if the government didn't raid it all the time for other things." Actually its running a very small deficit these days and (in theory) has a a sizeable "trust fund" of all the surplus money the Federal Gov't has borrowed over the years. Since Uncle Sam's credit is still good those Treasury's are still worth their face value.
Originally Posted By fkurucz "As for SSA being underfunded, that's a myth. SPP is correct. The government keeps raiding the SSA coffers to pay for other things. If they'd leave it alone, there would be a HUGE surplus. H-U-G-E." Too be fair, that surplus has to be invested somewhere. Other than Treasuries the only other choices are corporate bonds or the stock market, both which carry their own risks as well. At this point the main fear is that Uncle Sam will default on that debt, which is unlikely at this point. That said they moght "monetize" the SS trust fund debt via inflation.
Originally Posted By fkurucz "This whole means testing for SSA and Medicare makes me sick. It's such a small percentage of seniors who are wealthy enough to not need these programs, that it's not worth spending millions of taxpayer dollars each year in determining who deserves it and who doesn't." I agree. The effect will be minimal unless its very broad, which will probably mean that anyone who was responsible enough to save anything in their 401k or IRA accounts will get screwed.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip skinnerbox... you just don't get it. I am retired. I am probably closer to the age when you can start collecting Social Security than anyone else on this thread. Am I looking forward to the day when I can begin collecting it? You bet I am. Do I need the full benefit? If I want to continue annual vacations to WDW, annual cruises and spending an average of $500 per month at restaurants, yes I do. I am not wealthy. I have a net worth of somewhere around $350K which makes me comfortable (since I receive a fixed-benefit pension) but definitely not wealthy. Could I afford to give up some of my benefit to insure the continued solvency of the system? Yes I could. Would that be my preference? No, it would not. But some of us are actually able to look beyond our own self-interest in making these decisions. If more thought like I do this country would be a lot less screwed up.
Originally Posted By fkurucz "What is important, is that we're not receiving those precious payments which the conservatives believe we're not entitled to, even though we paid into an insurance system for decades in order to receive them." If the GOP completes their sweep back into power in 2012 be prepared for them to propose radical change to SS. I expect that we will be barraged with messages of how SS is beyond salvation and that it needs to be scrapped. Then watch as the propose replacing it with something like a 401k plan, which won't provide the working poor with any sort of meaningful benefit. All that will happen is they will instead collect welfare in their older years.
Originally Posted By fkurucz "I am not wealthy. I have a net worth of somewhere around $350K which makes me comfortable (since I receive a fixed-benefit pension) but definitely not wealthy." Between your state pension and your savings you are already in an elite group. I suspect that after excluding those with high net worths that they will exclude those with other pension incomes next. But in the end, the "conservative" goal will be to scrap SS altogther. Like I said before, just wait for the rhetoric to be cranked up if they take the Senate and Whitehouse in 2012. We will be told that SS is a "threat" to "America's strength" and that it has to go. Already we are being told repeatedly that it's an "entitlement", nevermind that I have contributed $200,000 to it during my far from over working career. It will be yet another way to stripmine the middle class's remaining wealth. With no SS pensionless seniors (and they are legion) will be forced to sell their paid off homes and move into trailers to complement their income as WalMart greeters. Meanwhile the super wealthy's share of the national wealth will continue to skyrocket while consevative stooges insist that they deserve it. And one final word for you RT. Conservatives also want your state pension. And don't think for a split second that just because you are fully vested that you are "safe". Consewrvatives will fabricate a crisis to take some or even all of it away from you. They will claim that your state pension is a burden on taxpayers, etc.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I certainly do not support the conservative's goals of taking away benefits and the bargaining rights of workers. I am just willing to make some adjustments if it will assure not only that I receive a SS benefit, but that today's twenty-year old will receive one also.
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