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"Every January for 30-some years I've gotten a mailer from SS telling me that they will send me "X" every month when I retire."
Actually that is not correct. the notice they have sent you all these years says, "The statement can help you better plan your financial future. It give s you estimates of your Social Security benefits under current law.
In addition of course it was also estimated based on your supposed future earnings until you retire and based on full retirement age. If either of those changed so did the amount you would recieve.
So at no time was this a promise to pay you XXX dollars.
No proposal to reform social security is going to please everyone. The discussions we have on this forum have continually demonstrated that fact. However, if some reforms are not taken (and soon) at least with respect to medicare, a crisis cannot be avoided.
If you pay less for a program than you take out of it (after considering a reasonable interest rate on your money) than at least that portion of the money you didn't earn is an entitlement pure and simple. I wonder why that is such a radical concept for some people? There is no message worse than the message we don't want to hear, perhaps?
Any reform package should contain the following elements:
1. An eventual payroll tax increase. This should be gradual. Perhaps in increments of 1/4 of 1 percent per year for six consecutive years. It should begin as the economy gradually recovers from this recession which should be in about one more year.
2. Some sort of means testing for those who really don't need the benefit. This shouldn't be absolute. For example, I think everyone who has paid in should always get some benefit. However, benefits should begin to taper off for the upper income groups and those who truly have no need for the benefit. I hesitate with this reform because it does make social security more of a "welfare program" than a retirement program. However, in the end, maintaining it for those really need it must take priority.
3. Raising the retirement age to 69 or 70. The sooner the better.
4. The greater problem is medicare and we need to realize this and get on with it.
No proposal to reform social security is going to please everyone. The discussions we have on this forum have continually demonstrated that fact. However, if some reforms are not taken (and soon) at least with respect to medicare, a crisis cannot be avoided.
If you pay less for a program than you take out of it (after considering a reasonable interest rate on your money) than at least that portion of the money you didn't earn is an entitlement pure and simple. I wonder why that is such a radical concept for some people? There is no message worse than the message we don't want to hear, perhaps?
Any reform package should contain the following elements:
1. An eventual payroll tax increase. This should be gradual. Perhaps in increments of 1/4 of 1 percent per year for six consecutive years. It should begin as the economy gradually recovers from this recession which should be in about one more year.
2. Some sort of means testing for those who really don't need the benefit. This shouldn't be absolute. For example, I think everyone who has paid in should always get some benefit. However, benefits should begin to taper off for the upper income groups and those who truly have no need for the benefit. I hesitate with this reform because it does make social security more of a "welfare program" than a retirement program. However, in the end, maintaining it for those really need it must take priority.
3. Raising the retirement age to 69 or 70. The sooner the better.
4. The greater problem is medicare and we need to realize this and get on with it.
There are plenty of ways of sheltering your assets in order to meet a government "means test" and I'm going to strongly suggest that my peers begin to do this sooner than later. No reason we should work our butts off for 50 years to be told "no soup for you" because we were responsible and actually saved for our retirement. Then what's the government going to do? That's going to cause less for everyone, even those who were truly the working poor. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face...
on what to do with those who are unemployed at 60ish and cannot find work due to age discrimination?
This is getting old. My company just hired a 62 year old. We also have hired two workers in their 50's and one in his late 20's over the past few weeks.
Does age discrimination exist? Sure, but people are also discriminated against for being young, having kids, not having kids, being over weight, being too thin, being female, being male, not being the right race/religion, not being bi-lingual, having an accent, the list goes on.
No proposal to reform social security is going to please everyone. The discussions we have on this forum have continually demonstrated that fact. However, if some reforms are not taken (and soon) at least with respect to medicare, a crisis cannot be avoided.
If you pay less for a program than you take out of it (after considering a reasonable interest rate on your money) than at least that portion of the money you didn't earn is an entitlement pure and simple. I wonder why that is such a radical concept for some people? There is no message worse than the message we don't want to hear, perhaps?
Any reform package should contain the following elements:
1. An eventual payroll tax increase. This should be gradual. Perhaps in increments of 1/4 of 1 percent per year for six consecutive years. It should begin as the economy gradually recovers from this recession which should be in about one more year.
2. Some sort of means testing for those who really don't need the benefit. This shouldn't be absolute. For example, I think everyone who has paid in should always get some benefit. However, benefits should begin to taper off for the upper income groups and those who truly have no need for the benefit. I hesitate with this reform because it does make social security more of a "welfare program" than a retirement program. However, in the end, maintaining it for those really need it must take priority.
3. Raising the retirement age to 69 or 70. The sooner the better.
4. The greater problem is medicare and we need to realize this and get on with it.
I would never be in favor of a tax increase until there is a guarantee that I'll get some of what I put into the program back out when I retire. Again this is shifting an unfair tax burden on the higher end of the middle income earners.
Unfortunately no one in DC is talking about the CAUSE of the medicare problem, dramatically rising health care costs. Unless COSTS are reigned in, retirees will pay greater and greater amounts out of pocket which is just not sustainable. The pay model for doctors and hospitals has to change so that doing more and more procedures is not rewarded.
In addition, the abuse with medicare coding has to stop (hospitals and doctors are gaming the system and using higher reimbursement codes for visits and procedures that are not reflective of the actual treatment, when in fact they could use the accurate and lower reimbursement codes). All kinds of scams and abuse in the system to the tune of billions every year. Guess who pays? Retirees through spiraling premiums and more out of pocket.
The whole system is broken, but as long as Congress is paid off by hospital organizations, doctor organizations, big pharma and insurance companies, nothing will change. Right now there are acute shortages of cheap generic cancer drugs that work well, but doctors can't get them for treating patients, because big pharma won't make these cheaper generic drugs. Less profit. It's all about money, folks. So cancer docs are using much more costly cancer drugs because the generics aren't available, which is ludicrous. What does this do? It raises the cost of treatment, and once again, who gets gouged unnecessarily? Retirees. Here's the kicker. Insurance companies eliminate coverage for the cheaper options for some of these cancer drugs from their policies and are thereby forcing patients to use the higher priced drugs, which is more profit for big pharma. It's collusion, to say the least.
3. Raising the retirement age to 69 or 70. The sooner the better.
I know you to be a rational, reasonable, and logical poster, and I also know that you are an attorney. Attorneys, and people in many other professions, might be expected to be able to work until age 69 or 70 as you propose. However, what about workers who do hard, physical labor as part of their job? I am 67 but I doubt if I could put in an 8-hour shift as a roofer when the temperature is 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and I am an active and vigorous person.
I know you to be a rational, reasonable, and logical poster, and I also know that you are an attorney. Attorneys, and people in many other professions, might be expected to be able to work until age 69 or 70 as you propose. However, what about workers who do hard, physical labor as part of their job? I am 67 but I doubt if I could put in an 8-hour shift as a roofer when the temperature is 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and I am an active and vigorous person.
A completely reasonable point. White collar work is different than blue collar work. I have known people 65 years of age who put in a whole day doing building construction work and didn't complain about it though. I won't say this is average or typical. One guy I knew was just tough. He was the sort who had been to prison for committing an assault in his past. He never expected anything out of life other than to have to work. I believe he also had a decent employer who kept him on partly out of respect for his loyalty to the company and his tenacity over the years. Sadly, he didn't live long after he retired.
I would hope that most people age 55 or older who do construction, carpentry, roofing, sheet metal work, or other heavy physical labor would have worked themselves into a position that is primarily supervisory by that age. That's what used to be most common. However, in today's economy there may well be fewer of these opportunities. Again, I know a number of people who did exactly this.
I don't think there's an absolute solution under the system to everyone's problems. For those who truly can't do the job because of physical limitations and such, a retirement under social security disability might be option.
I suppose under the system I am advocating that we would still allow an early retirement. Although instead of taking place at 62, it would take place at 65. The benefits would be correspondingly less as well.
There is a bottom line to all of this. The system cannot afford to be as generous as it has been in the past. It cannot be all things to all groups anymore. I don't want to just "throw anyone under the bus". Yet, at the same time, hard decisions are going to have to be made about what we can afford to do and what we can't afford to do. Its no one's fault that human longevity has reached the point that it has. However, we are either going to have raise taxes or people are going to have to do more private retirement planning.
Above all, what I refuse to do is take the position that what's most important is seeing that everyone who is alive now gets all the benefits they *think* they are entitled too, while "throwing future generations under the bus". That's intolerable and too many people implicitly or explicitly accept this sort of "robbery of future generations". We shouldn't stand for it.
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any ideas
