Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Circling back to the initial statement in this thread...
Bumping full retirement age to age 69 simply cuts benefits for all those people. You can still start collecting at age 62. It will just be less money. If your FRA is age 66 like everyone born between 1943 and 1954, you get 75% of your age 66 check. If you were born before 1937, your FRA is 65 and you get 80% of your age 65 FRA check. If you're born in 1960 with FRA set to 67, you get 70% of your FRA check at age 62. If you bump FRA to age 69, you'd get 60% if you start collecting at age 62.
In my opinion, it's a pretty raw deal. I think it would be better to raise taxes and keep it the way it is.
Predatory Health Care wants you to have one every year or two. Back when I got my first they suggested like ONE of them. Now, they keep sending out cards to try and make you go back every couple of years. Why? Not for your health. There is absolutely no stats saying it is better to get one every 3 or 4 years than, say, once or twice in your life (all in there being OK).
And so, you have - without knowing it - pointed out some of the problem. The ONLY reason we keep getting those notices is the greed of the arse doctors. Even my GP laughs when I tell him how often they send them out. There should be a law against it.
And what's even worse is that the Colonoscopy centers want to either knock you out, or give you an amnesic so that you don't remember the procedure. I have a relative who is a nurse anesthetist and she said they do that so the doctor can do the procedure very quickly, if you don't have an anesthetic they have to go more slowly but the benefit is they won't perforate your colon if they are forced to take their time. I had one (without any anesthesia) but since then I changed my health care to Kaiser & they just mail me a FIT test every two years, there's no profit motive in colonoscopy's for Kaiser -IMO all healthcare should be run like Kaiser is
Circling back to the initial statement in this thread...
Bumping full retirement age to age 69 simply cuts benefits for all those people. You can still start collecting at age 62. It will just be less money. If your FRA is age 66 like everyone born between 1943 and 1954, you get 75% of your age 66 check. If you were born before 1937, your FRA is 65 and you get 80% of your age 65 FRA check. If you're born in 1960 with FRA set to 67, you get 70% of your FRA check at age 62. If you bump FRA to age 69, you'd get 60% if you start collecting at age 62.
In my opinion, it's a pretty raw deal. I think it would be better to raise taxes and keep it the way it is.
Add to that the impact of getting rid of expanded medicaid, raising the retirement age will just add a few more years without healthcare for people who can't afford insurance and aren't yet eligible for medicare
Add to that the impact of getting rid of expanded medicaid, raising the retirement age will just add a few more years without healthcare for people who can't afford insurance and aren't yet eligible for medicare
And then heap on top of that the reality that 31% of the Medicaid budget funds elderly long term care. When Medicaid is slashed and they flip over to block grants, it's going to put a lot of elderly in nursing homes out on the streets. I think states are going to start enforcing their filial responsibility laws. If your parents are in a nursing home on Medicaid, the state is going to chase you for the money to pay for it. My mom has severe short term memory loss and is in assisted living. At her current burn rate, she's out of money in 4 years. I'm getting concerned that I could be on the hook for paying for a memory care unit or nursing home. Sayonara to my retirement savings.
A bill was sent to the floor of the house (HR 6489) recently that would raise the Social Security retirement age to 69. It is common knowledge that being unemployed and over 50 is a nightmare and less known that suicide rates of people between 55 and 60 took a jump during the last recession.
Does Congress have any sense of reality when it comes to the SS retirement age and the reality of age discrimination?
Look, here's the problem. People are living longer than they were when the program was designed back in the 1930's. So, logically something has to give. You can raise employment taxes. You can raise the eligibility age for social security. Or, you can cut benefits.
What you can't do is nothing at all.
I favor a combination of things. I'd raise payroll taxes 1% in .25% increments over a four year period. I'd raise the age of retirement gradually to about age 70 in an incremental fashion as well. I'd do it based on birth date and I'd increase it every five years until retirement age was either 69 or 70. I might consider a special tax on people like myself who are going to be hitting retirement in the next 10 to 15 years. Perhaps, we should pay an extra 1% towards payroll taxes above what the younger generations are paying.
What we can't do is sit around and delude ourselves or worse yet blame Congress for spending the money in the trust fund. All that blaming isn't going to do anything to fix the problem. What isn't acceptable is to let the program go bankrupt. This is a country where private pensions have basically disappeared and millions will depend on social security as a major source of retirement income.
I want it fixed for my generation and younger generations as well. There is been too much dithering around and all the politicians got through this last election campaign without even addressing the issue. That just makes me ill.
Look, here's the problem. People are living longer than they were when the program was designed back in the 1930's. So, logically something has to give. You can raise employment taxes. You can raise the eligibility age for social security. Or, you can cut benefits.
What you can't do is nothing at all.
I favor a combination of things. I'd raise payroll taxes 1% in .25% increments over a four year period. I'd raise the age of retirement gradually to about age 70 in an incremental fashion as well. I'd do it based on birth date and I'd increase it every five years until retirement age was either 69 or 70. I might consider a special tax on people like myself who are going to be hitting retirement in the next 10 to 15 years. Perhaps, we should pay an extra 1% towards payroll taxes above what the younger generations are paying.
What we can't do is sit around and delude ourselves or worse yet blame Congress for spending the money in the trust fund. All that blaming isn't going to do anything to fix the problem. What isn't acceptable is to let the program go bankrupt. This is a country where private pensions have basically disappeared and millions will depend on social security as a major source of retirement income.
I want it fixed for my generation and younger generations as well. There is been too much dithering around and all the politicians got through this last election campaign without even addressing the issue. That just makes me ill.
Only 7% are above the cap. It may not be enough to solve the long term problem. I know people think it's no problem raising the other guys tax.
Lots of people claim that alone will solve all Social Security's problems, but such a claim has never made sense to me. First, as you state above, few wage/salary earners make more than the cap. Plus, I would think that many people are above the cap by only a small margin, which means that the extra SS tax revenue from those people would be small.
increase payroll taxes a little bit
increase the cap on payroll taxes so higher incomes can pay more and get more
extend the retirement age to 69 over the next 48 years .
we are adding 1 year of life every 4 years approx. so 48 years from now life expectancy will be such that at 69 the masses will still have the same number of "healthy " years in retirement .
i lived with the Canadian one . they can have it . the care is nothing like we get here . it reminds me of the 1980 days here with the HIP clinics .
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
