Ryan plan includes means testing Social Security. Why that is a bad idea.

[Hamlette]

Means testing has been debated for at least 30 years. On the face of it, it sounds reasonable. There are several problems with it:

1. You'd have to determine eligibility which means checking into the finances of all people receiving social security. I work in the state welfare office which is a means tested program. If you are not poor, you don't get benefits. Examining SS recipients income and assets is evasive and it is expensive. You might not realize this but the welfare office hooks into several data bases and checks property records, motor vehicle records, tax records, social security records, records of the unemployment office etc. Add in the cost of investigators and fraud prosecutions and it starts to cost big bucks. Plus, really, you gonna prosecute granny? Cruel.

2. Applying for and receiving welfare is humiliating whether intended to be or not. For many that would transfer to the receipt of SS benefits. Many people who are eligible for social security would not be able escape the idea that they are receiving a handout. I remember my parents and aunts saying if they means test it they would not apply/receive SS because of the stigma. Some in my family would have had a rotten life without SS benefits. Whether this is the intent or not, and it might be the intent, a certain segment of our society would look down their noses at people who receive SS.

3. It is wholly unnecessary. If you want to cut rich people off because they don't need it, why not just tax them more and keep it like the annuity system it is? Lift the cap. The reason Buffet's taxes are less than his secretary's is because 100% of her income is most likely is subject to FICA while someone like Mitt pays a FICA on a fraction of 1% of his income. Raise the cap or lift the cap. Problem solved with none of the other consequences.

We have fought about this in my family for years. This is the winning argument. We should use it.

[EC]

1. Means testing means guaranteeing no further growth

and guaranteeing that we will not be able to leave anything to our kids. The rich don't care, they'll just choose not to collect SS. But for those of us who rely on it for our retirement it'll mean we stay below so much income - assets, just to collect, so we'll never be able to increase our income or be able to save to leave something to our kids.

[HiPointDem]

2. social security is already means-tested. reagan started it, clinton increased it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. I don't think a lot of people understand that, Dem...

nor that there is a "kind of "means test to even get Soc. Sec.

[HiPointDem]

7. i agree. it seems like a failure of popular/political education, since SS is actually one of the

easiest government programs to understand.

maybe the ptb like us dumb.

[Hamlette]

10. How is it means tested?

You get paid based on what you put in and you pay taxes on half of it but you get the same amount whether you have other income or not. Right?

[HiPointDem]

11. 85% of SS benefits are subject to taxation, depending on other income. That is a clinton-era

change.

The earlier 50% subject to taxation was a Reagan-era change.

Before that, SS was not subject to taxation at all.

[Hamlette]

12. that is not means testing

that is taxation. It doesn't matter how much money you have in the bank, you get the same amount in social security if you are a millionaire or if you are poor. That makes it like unemployment insurance and the opposite of eligibility for TANF.

Would you say my salary from work is means tested because it is taxed? No, I get the same salary regardless of need. Means testing makes it based on need. The amount you get from SS is not based on need.

We are obviously not talking about the same thing.

[HiPointDem]

13. The more you earn, the less SS you wind up with -- in comparison with the original SS benefits

structure. The original structure is being whittled away bit by bit.

Semantics is not my interest.

[Hamlette]

14. it is not semantics. It is using words in a way so that others understand you

From Wiki: Means testing "refers generally to the eligibility for relief for debtors who have sufficient financial means to pay a portion of their debts."

. . .

[4] The means test is perhaps best recognized in the United States as the test used by courts to determine eligibility for Title 11 of the United States Code Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

During the Great Depression, the test was used to screen applicants for such programs as Home Relief in the United States, and starting in the 1960s, for benefits such as those provided by Medicaid and the Food Stamp Program.

In 1992, third-party Presidential candidate Ross Perot proposed that future Social Security benefits be subjected to a means test; though this was hailed by some as a potential solution to an impending crisis in funding the program, few other political candidates since Perot have publicly made the same suggestion, which would require costly investigations and might associate accepting those benefits with social stigma.

In 2005, the United States substantially changed its bankruptcy laws, adding a means test to prevent wealthy debtors from filing for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. A means test is a determination of whether an individual or family is eligible for help from the government.

snip

You can use the term "means test" any way you want but if you expect others to 1. know what you mean and 2. think that you know what you are talking about, it is easier if you us the term as it is defined by the rest of us and not as you define it.

[HiPointDem]

15. the end result is the same. and the motives -- to destroy support for the program -- also the same.

[Downwinder]

3. Means testing moves SS from an insurance program

to a welfare program. At what point are they going to start means testing retirement programs?

[HiPointDem]

8. it * increases* its welfarish nature, as it's already got some means-testing (thanks reagan &

clinton).

and yeah, that makes it increasingly unpopular with the top 20%, since they get less & less benefit. perhaps the plan is to undermine its support in this politically-involved demographic to make it easier to cut & privatize.

[UTUSN]

4. R#4 & K for, excellent points. Under #1, "invasive" fits the bill instead of "Evasive" n/t

[onethatcares]

5. wait a minute

all my working life I've contributed to my Social Security account. Some years a lot, some years not so much. Now some asshole in Washington is going to tell me that I'm not allowed to collect what I put in because I have an additional retirement program that allows me to live a bit above SS only just isn't the right thing to do.

[uponit7771]

9. +1!