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it is not the amount but the rate of spending that matters ... many retirees will live golden girl style and do fine on ss by not excessively spending . not a life i would ever want , but they do it . my grand parents lived on ss in to the 80's
The fact some people can survive on Social security today or in the past is irrelevant. Social security cannot keep up with the cost of living. In the near future, it will be inconsequential. Do the math. Social security cannot fund this crises. Already social security cannot keep up with COL. If people live a long time, they end up broke. Our system is structured for people to die soon after they stop working. People fail to comply with that now. Our system is also structured for never ending growth in the workforce. That is no longer a reality.
According to the SS website, if there are no reductions due to lack of funding, my wife and I should collect about $5K a month if we retire at 67. That is plenty to live on today, even after taxes. However in 2030 it will not go far, especially for two people. Single people get quite a bit less too. We have our 401K to rely on and probably some equity in our house. However most people are not so lucky.
There are people in our community who retired in the 1970s (or their spouse did), they are barely surviving on 1970s level Social Security, their savings are depleted, their house has become so dilapidated it has lost its value. Some of the houses cannot be salvaged and will have to be torn down when they die. This is in one of the most affluent areas of Michigan. These people were once well off, but no after decades of living on Social security, they are eating Ramen and living in one or two rooms because they cannot afford to heat their entire house. Many of these people are very private and no one knows them. If they are discovered, people step up to help them. Some do not get discovered until they die (or some time afterwards). They are the primary poor people in our community.
If we have this problem now among formerly affluent people, how much worse will it be when social security provides substantially less buying power as it is unable to keep up with COL?
Social security has run its course and is on its way out as a viable retirement option for the average person. At some point pensions were replaced with 401Ks to give people more freedom and the option to use their income rather than saving it for retirement. Most chose to either spend it all, or put only minimal amounts into the optional 401K plans.
The people retired now and retiring in the immediate future have a considerable amount of retirement savings as a group. Many still have pensions, and more have other retirement thus, they will put less of a burden on the system than will the people in ten years or so, most of whom have little or no retirement savings and often will have a significant debt load at retirement and may well have little or now equity in their home.
Also not everyone gets social security. Many people do not qualify. For them even whatever pittance SS will provide in 2030 will be unavailable.
IRAs are not an investment account - you want to invest, invest. With post-tax dollars. And have almost total freedom to do as you like with those funds and accounts.
You want a special break, investing with pre-tax dollars as an individual pension? The cost at the other end is that you don't get to just stash it away as a protected investment, but eventually have to start drawing it down for, you know, retirement.
Did all of you just wander away from the "They're coming for our guns!" rants or something?
See? Here is an example of "It will not happen" Without any idea for how will they pay for this?
Some people do not seem to grasp this is not 1972 were everyone has pensions and/or retirement savings and where you can live n SS even if you do not have those things. the world is not the same as it was and it is not going to stay the same as it is. It is so hard to see this obvious crises with no solution proposed by anyone?
Changes most likely will be made to eliminate the cap on Social Security before means testing. There may also be an increase in the percentages. Perhaps the percentages will be graduated. At some point Social Security will probably evolve into some type of basic income.
Yes, but property rights are actually getting stronger. For reference, in recent decades many states have moved to require a criminal conviction before taking property in civil asset forfeiture, even when not forced to do so by any federal courts. There is a nationwide movement to that effect as well. I see no sign that private property rights are being weakened in any grand sense, even though some state and local laws will try to chip away at the edges.
It takes more than corn and soy derived byproducts to keep a geezer alive. Property rights means squat if you cannot pay taxes or avoid swindlers preying on your diminishing mental faculties. In USA maintenance and disposal of old people is mostly big business largely powered by tax money since families cannot/do not want to provide for their old. And not just a business but predatory business with sky high prices and margins. SS is just a part of give aways. Food is the cheapest thing to provide. The charges for one day stay in a hospital can feed several people for a year. If this twisted public private partnership will be underfunded a good chunk of old people will be enjoying their SS in homeless camps but not for too long.
I will not argue about exact % but a good deal of old people wants working poor wiping their butts to rot without access to any assistance of any kind so they could be more energetic about working their way up the ladder. Maybe some free market rigors are needed to remind old folks that in the free market scheme of things they are way below working poor.
The government does not need to march in and clean out your 401K to take the money. They can simply impose a tax on withdrawals. Withdrawals are already mandatory. Done. Nothing unconstitutional and the money still changes hands.
If you think that our government cannot figure out some way to get at any given pocket of money one way or another, sorry, I think you are too naive for this conversation. There is nothing they cannot tax or redistribute one way or another. Once it was believed income tax could never happen. It was unconstitutional. the Constitutional restrictions are and always have been merely an obstacle for the government to find a way around when it wants to tax something.
The fact is there will be no other source for the amount of money necessary to keep all the retirees alive. This is not difficult math. We no longer have the conditions that support our current retirees. If you want to assume nothing has changed and nothing will change and charge blindly ahead assuming everything will be for you the same as it was for you parents - have at it. I wish you the best of luck.
When saying what the government will or will not do in the future, look at the people who will be running our country and some of the attitudes they are adopting. Read the articles about how older people are causing a housing crises right now for younger people by refusing to get out of their big houses by downsizing or dying like they should. The people writing and reading these articles will be the people controlling the country, and the people generating the income. "These awful old people raped our country of its resources, created all these problems and now want to sit and live high on the hog from their ill gotten gains while other starve."
I don't to see anything we can do about it really. I am simply being aware that my 401K funds will likely be redistributed at some point. It is just how it is. I do not want my brother or my friends to starve when they get old, so I can accept the fact that a portion of my savings will have to support them. It is interesting to me that so many people refuse to see this is a necessity because they really really do not want it to happen. However they do not offer any alternate solution (except printing more money - which might be a possibility, but it is hard to believe today's young people, who will be by then making the decisions, will put themselves into future debt rather than take the savings of old people.
There's a straightforward solution to all of this: import able-bodied young people who are willing to work, and who will have more children. But the political climate is moving precisely in the opposite direction.
There would never be enough support for a Constitutional amendment to repeal the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. ‘Nuff said.
The government could simply impose a special tax on withdrawals from tax deferred retirement accounts, There would no constitutional takings issue by doing so, but there would be political issues for those who imposed the tax. After all, 70% and 90% income tax brackets were constitutional.
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