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Social Security
- Thread starter Riders
- Start date
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
There have been threats to cut Medicaid and Social Security Disability by the Republicans in general, plus there has been a push to privatize at least a good chunk of Social Security, which would be nuts. Imagine, for example, if that during the "freefall" staring in 2008, that much or most of our Social Security was tied up in the stock market. Imagine the absolute panic that this would have created and how it would have affected the stock market itself.
So, why are they thinking about doing this? $ for the investors. Most Americans are opposed to doing this, including Republicans, btw, and yet these clowns are quite likely to go ahead with it anyway because there's money to be made.
Agreed.
Hope your wrong. I've been paying into S.S. for 30 plus years. I sure hope to get a return on my investment.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
As do I for my kid's and grandkid's sake. The public opinion polls shot it down when Bush tried it, so hopefully we're prepared to do it again.
dust1n
Zindīq
Buckle up.
"Sam Johnson, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s subcommittee on Social Security, has just introduced legislation to start cutting Social Security for the rich, the middle class and the poor alike, starting as early as the year after next.
Using standard spin protocols, the bill to cut Social Security is called a bill to “save” it, and the most offensive measures are obscured using the classic mixture of jargon, confusion and misdirection.
But make no mistake: The House GOP has just laid out its blueprint for Social Security, and it amounts to cuts, cuts and cuts. The deepest cuts, for now, will be for wealthier retirees. But the middle class and the poor will not be spared.
What is this going to mean for you?
According to calculations made by the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary, the key proposal is buried at No. 5 on a list of 15. It will cut future cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for retirees each year, starting as early as December 2018.
These days, once you start getting Social Security, your benefits rise each year, in line with the standard rate of inflation, known as the Consumer Price Index. In the future, they will rise only in line with a fancy new rate of inflation, known as a “chained” index. The details are technical. The only thing that really matters is that the new rate is lower than the old rate. (Did you really wonder?) Your benefits will lose purchasing power over time. As you can see from the chart, above, the federal government’s longest-running “chained” inflation index, the chained PCE index, has grown by far less over the past 50 years than the standard CPI.
Note, please, that these are only the Republican proposals for the poor and middle class. For those earning above a threshold — about $85,000 a year for an individual, and twice that for a married couple — there will in the future be no cost-of-living adjustments at all. That’s right. Zip. They will be completely frozen. So inflation will eat away at your income every year.
If inflation averages 3% a year, a pretty modest amount by the standards of history, you will lose 27% of your purchasing power within a decade. Good luck with that.
Oh, and the “threshold” for freezing benefits is a clever ruse. Once it’s in place, Republicans also plan to let it fall in real terms over time. The thresholds, according to Johnson’s bill, will only rise each year in line with the new “chained” inflation rate.
Eventually, we may have a situation where the COLAs are for almost no one.
The GOP is right about one thing: The current CPI isn’t a great way to measure inflation for senior citizens. But it’s not too high. It’s too low.
The things that take up most of their budget aren’t subject to the benefits of deflation. Medical services aren’t getting cheaper. Nursing homes aren’t getting cheaper. Food isn’t getting cheaper. Property taxes aren’t getting cheaper. Sure, economists’ calculations say smartphones and computers (and Ivanka Trump-branded shoes made in China) are getting cheaper every year in real terms, but how many can you eat?
As our chart also shows, the rate of inflation for medical services, for example, has vastly outpaced even the standard Consumer Price Index. Senior citizens have been finding it harder and harder to pay for everything that isn’t already covered by Medicare (for which Paul Ryan and the House GOP also have some exciting plans!). Cutting their COLAs will be sending them backward, not forward."
Yes same here.