Do you think Congress will raise the age to collect Social Security?

I do think that it is likely the retirement age will be raised.

Seems likely to me. We’re living much longer today than back when the system iwas designed. But I hope they put some rules in place to keep companies from just arbitrarily dropping older workers because they make more than new hires. If you have to work to 70 before retiring, you need to be assured that so long as you do a good job and give the company no cause to terminate you, you can work that long.

No, I think that there is enough opposition to prevent that. It would be much better to remove the cap on salary eligible for social security collections.

Besides, Social Security should have no part in the budget negotiation. Social Security has no effect on the debt ceiling or on the budget. In fact, it would be better to lower the retirement age to 55 which would free up some jobs and encourage people to start a second career.

Yes, it’s a possibility. By doing so. the Congress may use this ploy to justify raising the national debt level.

It could be the answer that both sides of Congress could live with.

It is commons sense. We are living longer, staying healthy longer. Retirement age will increase and social security must change with it.

They might also consider making it more difficult to collect disability, too.

It should be lowered to 60.

Raising it is a really stupid idea for a couple reasons.

One is that people can keep chugging along at that age, no biggie.
For some jobs and some people that is the case but for folks doing labor, e.g. a farm worker, they are already worn out at 65 and probably ought to be able to get off the treadmill earlier.

Another is that it does not really save much money, That is one of those analyses done by some jackass with a spreadsheet that does not include everything. ome folks can be already needing more time off for medical reasons, so they are less productive than presumed, and in lots of cases additional years of work will cost more in additional medical problems that would not have come up as early if they were retired.

Some folks are barely hanging on at 65, and if pushed farther will end up out of work and on the dole before 67 anyway.

Another factor is that when the old folks retire, there is a job there for some young buck/doe to jump into. There have been some interesting analyses that if the the retirement age were 60 the additional social security costs for them will be well offset by the young folks getting those freed-up jobs paying into the system. Those young folks are out of work and possibly drawing on the dole one way or another now and won’t if they are employed.

Do I think congress will raise the SocSec retirement age, though ? Anything goes these days. There is a huge amount of unrational behavior in government these days, and policy/legislation that does not serve the public or the country in any positive way.

It’s pretty simple math. If people are living longer and collecting benefit longer, the money has to come from someplace, either: fewer benefits, reduced payments, increased contributions.

The retirement age in the UK is rising to 66.

They have already raised the age for full benefits; anyone born after 1937 has to wait a bit to get full benefits. I was born in 1955, so I have to wait until I am 66 and 2 months.

They may raise the minimum 62 yrs level to 65, and might raise the full benefits to 70 for those born later than 1970 or so. That’s been part of Paul Ryan’s proposal from a few months ago.

@worriedguy is right again, as usual.

It has to happen sooner or later.

Either SS taxes will have to be increased 1) to substantially higher rates and / or 2) with no cap on annual contribution or 3) the retirement age will need to be increased (and the sooner, the better) or 4) we’ll have to start means-testing (and only paying benefits to those who can demonstrate “need” – thereby admitting that Social Security is a welfare program that currently primarily benefits those who don’t “need” it – but we don’t want to make that admission, because of the pretense that it is a “retirement account” that we “contribute” to).

This is because of simple demographics: We currently have more people starting retirement than starting new work “on the books” – and paying in to Social Security. The Social Security “trust fund” is bankrupt except for the ‘bonds’ it has with the Treasury, which are only convertible into Social Security payments. That is, the bonds are in no way collateralized to have monetary value as other bonds do. There will be no way to expect shrinking younger generations to pay higher and higher FICA taxes in order to fund larger and larger retirement benefits for longer and longer (as life expectancies increase) to younger and younger retirees who need the money less and less.

If we don’t make adjustments, then when Social Security goes belly up – which it surely will at some point, anyway, based on the current plans – then it will take the rest of the economy with it, since no one will vote to take benefits away from the primary voting class in the country and expect to keep his fake career in politics.

@dabbler has a point. Blue collar labor jobs are much harder on the body than the white collar jobs.
I say make a two tier system.

Means testing needs to be looked at also. If someone has done extremely well when in those working years and are already retires with 6 figures or otherwise doing very well they should be asked (made) to opt out. I know that idea would go over about as well as a fart in church but it’s a start non the less.

@woodcutter No no no no no.

I am no fan of means testing. If SS Taxes have to come out, at least give the person the option to opt out. And if they don’t, oh well.

Absolutely. And cut the future benefit for younger workers as well. Not too many other choices except call the whole thing off.
I would GLADLY let them keep everything I have paid in, if I could opt out right now, and never pay in another cent.

Let me throw this out to all of you: Why not buy out every American from SS? Get a good estimate, write a check, and call it a day.

@cletrans2col
You don’t even have to cut me check. Take it. Just end it.
I’ve already told my kids that it is a curse that they must resist. From the first time they got a paycheck, I showed them the deduction on the stub. And they properly resent it. Their generation will pull the plug on the program-I guarantee it.

I am 55 years old, and have paid over $100,000 into Social Security. My company matched that amount.
I plan to retire in 4 years, and I will begin drawing about $1700 a month when I hit 62.
The math says I will have to live 100 months beyond that date (about when I am 70) to begin to collect money I (or my company) didn’t invest, not counting the interest that money has made since.
That’s not enough to live on, but it will suppliment my retirement and my 401K. Once I get there, I should be okay.
It scares me a bit when they say they might move back the retirement age a bit. Luckily, I am just making the cut-off for those for who it will not change.
The thing is Social Security was fixed under Clinton, and Bush then borrowed from it to pay for Iraq and Afganistan. Now Obama has lowered our contributions for the year to help the economy, and the result is SS gets hit again.
With people living longer, SS will have to improve its pay-out and take-in ratio, and protect itself from being looted in hard times.
Congress has its hands full.

@cletrans2col You missed my point, I believe. There are plenty of wealthy retirees( ss recipients), who don’t need the money but greedily take it anyway. They won’t miss it, while there are those trying to scrape by on 500 a month and that’s all they get. It’s sad. I just don’t get how those who are doing extremely well think, is all. They don’t want to give up jack, not because it will will even hurt them at all but just because of principle. They want big tax breaks, that is the Holy Grail of what to do, it’s the one solution fix to anything. I can understand companies who create jobs getting the preferential treatment but to get in on the wealthy tax breaks just because they happen to be rich because they made well on investments and don’t do anything to create jobs is stupid. That is another form of means testing I would like to see implemented. There is a misnomer that if you are well off you are a businessman/ job creator. The individuals who are not job creators are entitled to even more wealth just because they are wealthy? If or when the shit goes down these are the people that better be hunkered down in their fortresses because the masses will be going after them and all their cash will be just really rough asswipe.

They have done it before, they will do it again.

@Ron_C Social Security has no effect on the debt ceiling or on the budget

No effect on the budget? Even though SS consumes over 35% of the budget?

@plethora Social Security is an insurance plan paid by our, and our employer’s taxes. It was also borrowed from to support the first Reagen tax breaks for millionaires. The government may owe them but the fund is not a drain on the budget. The Medicare drug plan, however is a drain and I suspect a poison pill to enable the conservatives to eliminate or privatize medicare. Their refusal to allow the government to negotiate drug prices is a disgrace to democracy and capitalism.

@plethora Social Security pays for itself, it ‘consumes’ 35% of the budget only if you COMPLETELY IGNORE the fact that it kicks into the budget approximately the same amount through payroll-deducted premiums.

It is running a slight deficit at this time as far as I know. But on top of mostly paying its full freight now, it owns a couple Trillion dollars of US treasury notes to draw on, borrowed by Reagan’s administration in order to make his malfeasance appear less mal.
With no changes whatsoever it would not add to the debt for a couple decades as it spends down its savings.

Social Security isn’t broken now (it owns trillions in US treasury securities remember?) and could coast along until something like 2034 before it starts to spend money it doesn’t have and add to the national debt,

@filmfann it’s an insurance program, not a mutual fund, or your retirement investment. It’s a floor for your prosperity, not pretending to be the whole amount of retirement resources. For the people who only have Social Security it is a lot more than nothing and helps them survive. A surprising number of people find themselves dependent on Social Security when they planned and expected not to. If you need it, it can be a life-saver.

Some people get a lot more out of the system than they could ever pay in, in particular disabled and spouse’s of primary wage earners. Some people like you and probably me, will be paying into it more than we might get out.
Yes, we participate in Social Security because we have to, the pooling of risk over a hundred million people allows that to be very efficient way of accommodating payments.

The premium is already ‘means tested’ in a sense. People who make more money paid in at a higher rate – up to the cap – and may get retirement payments at a higher rate too up to a modest limit. The cap is pretty low considerring the range of incomes paying into the system. Even if the cap were doubled to around ¼ million $ the viability of Social Security would be extended to a future point that’d ridiculous to worry about in the context of the current economy.

If you want a “forever” solution just remove the cap on income considerred for the Social Security premium.

This also presumes the federal government of the US does not intend to default on all or part of the 14 trillion $ debt accrued. Social Security’s chunk of the pie and its payments could shrink in value enough to change its nature.

Medicare is a distinct story. It’s glaring handicap is that it’s designed to most serve the people who are least able to pay for it, the retired elderly and disabled people. If Medicare included the entire population we would have a base for a very efficient world-class health care system for everybody. The only people feeling less well would be HMO/insurance companies who have inverted the priorities away from curing folks. With their ‘rents’ on premiums and gateway monopoly on payment/“coverage” they continue to take their tax for no value added.

@dabbler SS consumes 20% of the federal budget. Medicare and Medicaid consume 19% of the federal budget. SS and Social Insurance taxes (not premiums, nice try….premiums would be voluntary. Taxes are not), contribute 42% of federal income. Call it an offset if you like. FYI, SS goes into a long term spend down in 3 years.

You’re being generous, @plethora. “Long term spend down” ... of Treasury IOUs. There’s nothing there to “spend down” except an accounting entry.

@CWOTUS Agreed….but that often seems to cause the left-wing some angst. Maybe I’m going soft.

@plethora Ronald Reagan and Tip Oneal got together back in the 1980s and put social security back on track to stay solvent. Clinton tapped into the fund to bring down the national debt, and if his surplus had been preserved, we would have no such problem today. Clinton left George W. Bush a balanced budget, declining national debt, and the largest budget surplus in history. Bush promised to preserve the surplus. He lied. He blew through it and was in deficit in the first year. He started two unfunded wars which will cost between $3.5 and 4.7 trillion, and pushed through a huge unfinded prescription drug benefit that was nothing but corporate welfare for Big Pharma. He doubled the national debt that Clinton had been paying down, And he did it all to produce the phony debt drisis that would let Con men finally kill their hated social programs and transfer all that money to the top 1%.

@ETpro Agreed….so do you think congress will raise the age to collect SS?

@plethora That would be one change I would support if they get employers on board with some reasonable protection against ageism. It’s getting so people in their upper 50s are routinely let go now because they aren’t quite vested in a pension fund and their share can be looted in that way, and even though they are at the height of the experience curve and the most productive of workers, bringing in a high school srop-out or two custs costs and makes the quarterly profit sheet look better so the CEP gets a bigger bonus check.

Dang, I was editing the typos above, and we had a momentary power failure. The last few lines should read, ”...bringing in a high school srop-out drop-out or two custs costs and makes the quarterly profit sheet look better so the CEP CEO gets a bigger bonus check.”

@ETpro and @plethora There is no reason that Social Security should be included in talks to raise the debt ceiling. They are mutually exclusive topics and the only reason they are included is that the right has sot to eliminate social security entirely or at least get hold of the trust fund to speculate on the stock market. Either option is a boon to the rich and a very bad idea for the ordinary citizen.

That being said, the only change I would support is the removal of the salary cap for the tax and encourage changes in the tax law so that CEO bonus and stock options and hedge fund managers income from speculation are counted as regular income and subject to the tax. Those small changes would insure that the program survives well past the Baby Boomers and remains solvent in the future. Further, I would support buying treasury bonds with the Social security fund but they should be the normal interest bearing bonds, not the interest free ones the government uses when they are stealing from the fund.

@Ron_C the right has sot to eliminate social security entirely or at least get hold of the trust fund to speculate on the stock market. Either option is a boon to the rich and a very bad idea for the ordinary citizen

Could you name one instance of “the right” proposing:
doing away with SS…..ever???
speculating on stocks with “trust fund” assets…ever??

@plethora are you kidding? From its inception, the right has opposed setting it up. After it became a fact they have moved to privatize the fund. Bush pushed for allowing portions of the fund to be directed investments from its beneficiaries. That would inject trillions into the stock market and would have made the melt-down an even bigger calamity than is was. I lost $100k on my IRA stocks, thank goodness that Social Security is protected.

@Ron_C From it’s inception? Which “right” are you talking about back in 1935?

And so after it became fact (in 1935), “they” moved to privatize the fund. Personally, I never heard the word “privatize” mentioned in relation to SS until after George Bush was elected. So that was, let’s see, about 55 years there unaccounted for Ron.

“That would inject trillions into the stock market…..??? Says who? Had that happened it is far more likely the money would had ended up in bonds.

You lost a 100K in your IRA. Maybe you should quit trying to do it yourself. Many, who used knowledgable professional managers lost nothing in stocks in 2008, assuming thats the year to which you refer.

@plethora Come on. Republicans have wanted from its inception to either privatize or eliminate social security. The extreme right would just eliminate it and let the poor and indigent, those so shiftless and shortsighted as to not get born into welath or have an IQ of 150, just starve to death upon retirement. The mainstream of Republican thought has been to privatize SS as an investment fund in Wall Street. George Bush tried to do just that. Goldwater wanted to do it in 1964. The Ryan budget went after Medicare, seeking to turn it into a voucher system which would be a great boon to the healthcare insurers but a horrible deal for seniors.

Here’s a writeup by Helen Thomas about all the times Republicans have launched attacks on Social Security through the years. She remembers 1929 and why we put it in place to start with.

@Ron_C As SS will be a pain in our ass in 20 years and the fact that I will pay into it and not see a dime, it should absolutely be in the discussion.

@cletrans2col Ronald Reagan and Tip Oneal cut a deal back in 1983 to put social security on firm footing through the boomer retirement years. Bill Clinton increased taxex enough to bring the budget to balance and used money from the Social Security trust fund to help get it there. He ran 4 straight years of surpluses, and turned over a budget that was not only balanced but had the largest surplus in US history to George W. Bush. Bush had campaigned on massive tax cuts (he didn’t bother to mention they would be slanted almost solely to the rich) and claimed he had a magic plan to cut taxes and preserve the surplus. Bush lied. He blew through the surplus and was in deficit in his first year in office. He started 2 unfunded wars and pushed through a massive unfunded prescription drug benefit that was nothing but taxation to support Big Pharma. He ended up raising the debt limit 7 times and doubling tha national debt. That’s where the money to pay for your retirement went. To the wealthiest 1%.

Things were on track for the Social Security fund to be just fine through the coming years, and Bush torpedoed the system by dangling free money in everyone’s faces. We need to get our revenue stream back to where it supports the system. And that can easily be done without harming the economy. In fct, slashing spending and killing Social Security and Medicare will hurt this economy far more than getting revenues back where they need to be.

@ETPro Helen’s article is not terribly impressive to me. She’s a bleeding heart.

Not sure where you were during the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, my friend, but SS has been an untouchable subject for at least those 30 years, a lightning rod for scorn from the “masses”.

Might we define who we are talking about when we mention the “right” and “Republicans” Neither are homogenous groups and include wide ranges of political opinion, especially when talking about those designations 60 years ago.

@plethora if you need a definition, the right,as previously mentioned, is the Republican leadership. Since before Social Security was established, the Republicans fought against it. Later, Reagan, and Bush, Jr. tried to cash in on it. Reagan used it for a big tax cut for the rich, Bush tried to scam it into the hands of investors. There is absolutely no reason in discussing the fund as part of the process of raising the debt ceiling.

@Ron_C Right = Republican leadership…got it!!

I’ll skip the short history of SS, however.

Do you think Congress will raise the age to collect SS?

@plethora If all you can bring forward to discredit Helen Thomas’ article is an ad hominem attack, I take that as admission you can’t refute the claims she makes. I was here in the US for most of those years, with a brief stint in Europe in the early 60s. Whatever Helen Thomas’ temperament, I know she is laying out historical truth in her article and that historical truth is best proven by looking things up, not by trying to discredit the messenger.

@plethora first of all, if there is a discussion about SS, it should not be during the debt ceiling created crisis.

SS is solvent for the next 25 years if nothing is done so there is time to slightly modify the program without raising the retirement age. In fact, I think the retirement age should be gradually reduced until it reaches 55.

One innocuous modification would be to eliminate the salary cap.

I believe that as long as Republicans are in charge they will attack the program. They will refer to their attacks as enhancement or some other moderate sounding term but the goal is to reduce or privatize the program. Remember, today’s Republicans feel that the government has no obligation to its citizens except to control (police) and punish.

@Ron_C You make me miss Nancy Pelosi more and more…if only she were still Speaker of the House all would be well.

@ETpro Ummmm…..am I required to read all your references? Especially when you are way off topic?

@plethora Suit yourself, man. Just don’t expect to be credible in rejecting a writer’s work when you haven’t even read it. Even the most biased of writers, which Helen Thomas most certainly is not, sometimes write something that is true. If you are going to refute what they say, you have to at least read it and respond to their claims, showing them to be false. Ad hominems are not an acceptable form of logical argument.

As to on topic, the post was in response to an earlier assertion. I already posted my position on the question, and I expect we pretty well agree on that.

@ETpro Ok….will take a look at it.

@plethora Yes, I miss Ms. Pelosi too. I just wish she had a more progressive House serving with her.

The way I see it, both Clinton and Obama are more Republican than Democrat. The represent what Republicans used to stand for, fiscal conservative and socially moderate.

When the Republicans co-opted the Christian Fundamentalists into the party, they took a sharp right turn to control and punishment and away from actually leveling the playing field and helping the country; Now with the Tea Party involved, there is not a lot of difference between the Republican party and the Brown shirt gangs that roamed Germany prior to WW2. They have the same ideology, get rid of other “inferior races” (in the present case Hispanics and poor black people. Jail everyone that does not toe the party line, build bigger an better prisons for profit, and co-opt public education to send children to ideologically correct schools. The we can be assured of a thousand years of workers and politicians trained in the “correct” patriotic manner.

Why else attack social security if not to punish people living off the public teat, attack teachers and lower their pay, and establish voter laws to insure that only the “proper” people vote?

@cletrans2col I suspect most republican either get along well with people of color or at least do nothing to actually hurt them. That is not the case with the hard right represented by the big money and tea party factions of the party. The draw their theories and philosophy from various sources like the old John Birch society that actively fought against the equal rights amendment and have a long history of opposing any government function that would educate the poor, provide rational immigration policy, provide, food or medical assistance to any poor people especially those of color, and any regulation that would level the playing field in finance or the job market. There is also a concerted effort to discourage minority, young people, and senior citizens from voting especially if those people are “off-color” Of course we are all black because the attack, now is on the poor and middle class regardless of color.

@Ron_C Well, you’re just brilliant, Ron. Where would you place yourself on that imaginary political spectrum?

@Ron_C Sounds like something I would see on Daily K(ooks)os.

Without a doubt. The only question is “when”!

I think that waiting for 30–40 years is waaay tooooo looonng. Raise the age within 5–10 years, then we will see real savings.