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What we really need is lower cost housing and health care.
NIMBYs and excessive regulations serve to keep housing costs unnecessarily high. And we all know health care in the U.S. is a complete rip off. Although we could do a lot on our own as 70% of our health care costs are related to poor food choices and lack of exercise.
"Western housing shortages do not just prevent many from ever affording their own home. They also drive inequality, climate change, low productivity growth, obesity, and even falling fertility rates,"
Again - not much of a way to fix SS.
Excessive regulations that reduce housing availability include things like rent control that impacts willingness to build rentals. Blaming housing for other issues is also very silly.
US healthcare is not a complete rip off - paying for health care and research associated is expensive, just hidden in high taxes on even the poor in many countries where they can pay half of their income in taxes for that "free" healthcare - it is all a matter of when pay.
I largely agree with you. However, if it becomes a question of reducing benefits I would reluctantly look to the general fund as a means of maintaining social security. I hope we don't have to go there, but one alternative is better than the other.
It is not a choice of reduce benefits or pay from general fund - the better choice is to fix it by raising taxes or reducing benefits without changing how it is funded. The most political favorable move would be to increase payments by making more income subject to tax without increasing the max benefit and raising the retirement age for full benefits.
Many people probably feel it's okay to phase out benefits at some level higher than their own income. I'll bet there are plenty who feel it's okay to eliminate SS benefits for anyone with $60k in other income. They've never earned $60k/year in their whole life and can't see why anyone should need more.
Also, there are ways to get around the income thresholds, at least for a while. If SS benefits were phased out based on income we'd see a huge shift into Roth accounts, and some older people would just start piling up money in their bank account or hoarding physical cash in their home (not a good idea, of course).
Wow, $60K in other income is really too low to be able to even afford to live in some places - my house payments alone are over $60K. This kind of idea also punishes those who planned for retirement and discourages younger folk from saving also. To move money into a Roth, you have to pay taxes on it and it becomes earned money (income). Someone selling their house or business would be discouraged from doing so because they would lose their income from SS. Also many earn over $60K just from SS - just because some never earned over $60K doesn't mean that we should punish those that do.
Phasing out benefits is not a good idea, they were earned - SS is supposed to be a safety net not a welfare program.
60k in nyc qualifies you for a low income housing project
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