Life Expectancy was only 62 when Social Security started...

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Tue Mar 5, 2013, 01:25 PM - Edit history (7)

Life Expectancy was only 62 when Social Security started

Two problems with this obiquitous RW argument for cutting Social Security benefits...

The first is that it is a willful abuse of statistics to deceive and confuse. Low 1930s life expectancy was largely due to infant mortality which obviously has no implications for a retirement program whatsoever. The life expectancy of working people hasn't increased much since the 1930s (though the life expectancy of well-heeled white collar workers has), etc., etc., etc..

The reasons the life expectancy argument is bogus are well documented, oft repeated and oft ignored. (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/the-life-expectancy-zombie/)

But I want to talk about the second problem...

WHO CARES ANYWAY???

Why would anyone would cite "original intent" in talking about a program like social security?

It is not something in the Constitution. It truly does not mean a freaking thing what our founding fathers (like FDR!?) thought Social Security benefits should be.

The US Navy was not created to maintain a nuclear retaliatory capacity in submarines that couldn't be taken out in a nuclear first strike. Really. Count on it. And Medicare obviously wasn't designed to pay for MRIs, which didn't exist in the 1960s.

And the internet was never intended to stream video. Tht's a fact! The internet was only intended to give a small number of people in the military and academia a way to post messages. And Henry Ford intended that all automobiles be black.

So who cares what Social Security was in the 1930s? If the program changed over time then it changed. Like, you know... over time.

If the 1930s concept of the program does not properly fund the 2013 concept of the program then the program needs more money, because we live in 2013. The 2013 notion of Social Security is what social security IS.

We are not governed by legislation from the 1930s. Our laws are amended continually and the LAW is whatever the most recent version of the law says.

And our social expectations and ambitions in the 1930s are not the current benchmark in an social policy sphere. The US government in the 1930s had no intention that black people be able to vote throughout the United States. True fact. It demonstrably did not.

And so what? Anyone who offered that observation as a critique of the Voting Right Act would be a loon and overt racist.

Even more disturbing than the life-expectancy flim-flam is the assumption that demonstrating that people in the 2013 have it better than people in the 1930s is a meaningful argument in favor of making people's lives worse because they were worse in the 1930s!!

How could anyone, anywhere think that the 1930s is supposed to be our perpetual standard for American society?

[still_one]

1. you are right, it is irrelevent. We have been paying into this insurance program for decades, and

now they want to change the rules.

I think it is way past due to take away ALL benefits, including health insurance from members of Congress, so they have to fight like most working people

[dkf]

5. What does longevity of payments have to do with it?

It's the amounts that matter. Social security isn't meant to give you a healthy return on your money.

So paying in means that you get something. That doesn't mean you can put a minimal amount and expect a great lifestyle.

[still_one]

9. They should NOT cut any ss or medicare benefits period. We are paying into it. They have stolen

money from that fund to pay for wars that most people never signed on to

Raising the age, CPI linkages are all cuts that should not be tolerated

[JDPriestly]

30. There is absolutely not danger that anyone will get or expect

a "great lifestyle" from Social Security. The average benefit is between $1200 and $1300 per month. That average includes the benefits above $1300 for people who paid the maximum for many years as well as the benefits below $1200 for people who paid in very little.

No one expects a great lifestyle from Social Security.

$1200-$1300 per month from Social Security is just enough of a benefit to keep seniors a few pennies above the poverty level if that is their only income.

The poverty level for 2013 is $11,490 in the US.

http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html

People receiving $1200-$1300 are just over the line. If the benefits were under $11,490 on average, then the average Social Security recipient would be eligible for federal and state and local assistance programs like maybe some food stamps. In fact many seniors on the lower end of Social Security benefits are eligible for and receive assistance from those programs -- rent subsidies, subsidized meals, etc.

The average Social Security benefit in January 2012 was:

$1,230 a month for retired workers;
$1,185 a month for widows or widowers over the age of 60;
$1,110 a month for disabled workers;
$1,878 a month for a disabled worker, spouse and one or more young children;
$2,487 a month for a widowed mother and two children.

The maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring at the 2012 full retirement age (66) is $2,366 a month.

http://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/overview

Try living high on the hog on $1,230. In Los Angeles, you have to really look to find an apartment that rents for that.

[G_j]

2. K&R

[raging_moderate]

31. That fact is just more evidence to me that it works as is....

it's helped to keep our elderly out of poverty and squalor - that plus of course medicare and improved health care overall (which we are also losing).

[dkf]

3. The amount we pay into social security was meant to fund a minimal existence.

We didn't and don't pay enough of our paychecks to have a comfortable lifestyle strictly on social security.

So complaining about a social security lifestyle makes sense because the program isn't meant for extras.

That is where original intent plays a role.

[cthulu2016]

7. Why should anyone care about that?

What it was meant for in the 1930s does not govern anything. It has no force or effect as US law.

There is a program today that should be funded to a certain level X or it should not.

One can argue about to what level it should be funded and what benefits should be.

One cannot, however, cite the history of a program as a policy argument for or against funding the program to a certain level.

If somebody thinks that as a matter of policy Social Security benefits need to be reduced than that is an argument about real people and real money in 2013 and going forward.

We look at a real situation today and form a real solution with the priorities and resources we have today.

If there is not enough money then increase funding or cut benefits. It is a policy debate.

[dkf]

10. Well then raise the payroll tax to create forced savings so people can get more in the future.

Change it to a retirement plan since Americans are awful savers anyway.

We should be saving at least 10% more so I say raise the payroll tax by 5%-10%. Then give options to invest the extra.

See that is how you adjust it for today's expectations.

[cthulu2016]

12. Yes, the program needs to take in more money or reduce outlays

The math is whatever the math is. (today)

[dkf]

18. Bingo. The original design doesn't provide what people expect. That is where intent comes in.

It was meant to change to adjust to the times. But people are stubborn and don't want to see it.

[JDPriestly]

37. Raise the cap.

For your information, the average monthly benefits in 2012 were

The average Social Security benefit in January 2012 was:

$1,230 a month for retired workers;
$1,185 a month for widows or widowers over the age of 60;
$1,110 a month for disabled workers;
$1,878 a month for a disabled worker, spouse and one or more young children;
$2,487 a month for a widowed mother and two children.

The maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring at the 2012 full retirement age (66) is $2,366 a month.

http://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/overview

That is just enough to keep the retired worker a hair above the poverty line of $11,490 per person.

http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html

By maintaining an average benefit of just enough over the poverty line to prevent nearly all retirees who rely on Social Security for their income from having to apply for all kinds of poverty programs just to eat and have a place to sleep, the Social Security benefit is slightly above poverty.

Please check your facts before spreading Republican lies. Thanks.





http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.htmlr information, the average monthly benefits are:

[still_one]

14. Just raise the cap, and yes, change it to a retirement plan, though in all honesty, most people use

it as a retirement plan

[duffyduff]

19. It's NOT a "retirement plan" but social insurance

You forgot SS also pays for disability and survivors' benefits.

[dkf]

23. It could work more like a retirement plan.

That's what the expectation is anyway.

[dkf]

20. As long as you pay it back when those folks retire.

[JDPriestly]

42. "Most" people?

Fact #4: For two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security provides the majority of their income. For one-third of the elderly, it provides nearly all of their income.

In 2002, Social Security provided 50 percent or more of the income of 66 percent of elderly people (those age 65 or older). Social Security provided 90 percent or more of the income of 34 percent of elderly people. For 22 percent of seniors, Social Security is the sole source of retirement income.[6]

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=531

Even if you saved money, your monthly income from the amount that an ordinary worker with a couple of kids to educate saves is very, very small.

The interest rate right now is about 1/2 a percent. To have $1,000 per month in income from interest, you would have to have savings of over $2,000,000. How close are you to that? Not many people can ever save that much.

Social Security is not paying too much, and there is no alternative to it for seniors. Call a retirement fund manager or broker. Tell him your mother has $250,000 in retirement savings and you want an investment that will pay her $1,000 per month on that money. He will probably hang up on you or tell you politely that he can't help you. How he responds will depend on whether he thinks you are ridiculing him.

Get the facts about Social Security.

The stock market is rising, but seniors with meager savings are ill-advised to gamble on it. And the secure investments that seniors are encouraged to make do not pay enough to even begin to live on.

[duffyduff]

15. Why do you keep repeating Cato Institute LIES about Social Security?

They have been lying for decades about it because of their belief there shouldn't be ANY Social Security at all.

Apparently you don't believe there should be, either, because you keep peddling the same lies over and over and over.

[dkf]

21. Gosh do you know anything about what social security was designed to do?

It is only one of legs the government expected people to have in their retirement.

From the social security website:

Although Hohaus appears to be the creator of the three-legged stool metaphor, the basic concept which the metaphor expresses was clearly understood and widely shared by the creators of the Social Security program. In fact, in a 1942 speech before the 37th annual meeting of the American Life Convention in Chicago, Hohaus approvingly quoted Social Security Board Chairman Arthur Altmeyer as expressing the core idea: "A social insurance system does not and need not undertake to furnish complete protection to all whom it covers under all circumstances. The social insurance approach is to assure that the benefits would provide a minimum protection, leaving to the individuals the responsibility of buying additional protection from private sources through their private means."

Although President Roosevelt apparently never used the "three-legged stool" metaphor, he clearly had this concept in mind when he created the Social Security program, and he expressed the idea, in other words, several times over the years.

"Because it has become increasingly difficult for individuals to build their own security single-handed, Government must now step in and help them lay the foundation stones .

The Act does not offer anyone, either individually or collectively, an easy life--nor was it ever intended so to do. None of the sums of money paid out to individuals in assistance or in insurance will spell anything approaching abundance. But they will furnish that minimum necessity to keep a foothold; and that is the kind of protection Americans want. . ."

"I cannot too strongly urge the wisdom of building upon the principles contained in the present Social Security Act in affording greater protection to our people, rather than turning to untried and demonstrably unsound panaceas. As I stated in my message four years ago: "It is overwhelmingly important to avoid any danger of permanently discrediting the sound and necessary policy of Federal legislation for economic security by attempting to apply it on too ambitious a scale before actual experience has provided guidance for the permanently safe direction of such efforts. The place of such a fundamental in our future civilization is too precious to be jeopardized now by the extravagant action."

We shall make the most orderly progress if we look upon social security as a development toward a goal rather than a finished product. We shall make the most lasting progress if we recognize that social security can furnish only a base upon which each one of our citizens may build his individual security through his own individual efforts."

http://www.ssa.gov/history/stool.html

[xtraxritical]

35. I believe the original name was Supplemental Income Security.

[JDPriestly]

44. And this is precisely what Social Security does.

. . . furnish that minimum necessity to keep a foothold; and that is the kind of protection Americans want. . ."

It does no more than that. Please stop spreading the lie that Social Security pays more than it does. As I have told you so many times before, on average, Social Security pays just enough to keep the recipient above the poverty line. If it paid less -- if in the future it pays less -- seniors will have to line up for all kinds of other benefit programs like food stamps and rent subsidies. Social Security benefits are calculated to save money on the bureaucracy needed to provide for many smaller programs.

Please get real information and stop repeating right-wing lies. See my previous posts to you on this subject linking to websites with numbers and statistics.

[Skittles]

62. catching on, are you, duffyduff?

it's actually pretty well known around these parts

[JDPriestly]

34. Raising the cap and maintaining current benefits is a far better idea.

[haele]

59. Force Savings? When most people barely have enough take-home pay to pay basic bills already?

That might "work" if someone is making over $50K a year and has no medical issues to deal with - just tell that worker he or she doesn't make enough to afford expensive toys like Jet Skis or to pay for cosmetic teeth-whitening or a salon visit every three months to touch up their hair style, but they should be putting that money into savings like a good little ant.

After all, households making under $50K usually get $2K or so of their income taxes "back" at the end of the year, because of EIC and all the other bennies those lucky-ducky working class moobs get so they can feel like they might be the working/middle class citizens they see on TV once and a while instead of realizing their life stuck as a working drone.
But...
Try to enforce that savings plan. Especially if it's your standard US mean household of four grossing of $50 - $75K between two adults and two non-working children. In my case, I'm the primary wage earner - my husband gets SSDI, but has significant medcal bills that usually eat up what they give him by the end of the month.
After paying federal, state, FICA and Medicare taxes, state fees (as required) at the break-even tax return exemption rate (gotta count that SSDI in there), and individual or employer-provided health insurance, our household income is usually only netting $38 - $45K a year.
The ratio of pre-tax dollars "saved" to tax savings is a delicate balance; I know in my particular tax situation (well under six figures but not under enough for EIC, stuck with taking the standard deduction), I only get an equalibrium of tax savings to my 401K retirement contribution (a savings account does not have the tax deferral...) at under 2%. Between 3% and 7%, my tax rate is still high compared to what is seen as gross (I'm stuck at a particular earnings tax bracket) net take-home pay takes anywhere from a $40 to $75 hit a paycheck.
Over 8%, the tax savings starts increasing to reach an "equalibrium" - as in I'm not paying a higher tax rate, but my net take-home pay still takes a hit - my taxes are down because I've finally dropped a tax bracket - my taxable wages are now under $38K a year instead of being at $46K a year.

While I might be able to support a family on $38K a year in Texas or Florida, trying to do that in California with any standard of no-frills living is almost impossible without looking at government assistance of some sort. I certainly can't buy a house with that sort of income, and with rents at almost 1/2 of my yearly income and basic utilities/non-medical insurance at around 1/3, unless I tell my family "Hey, kids, let's sell the paid-off car, any working appliances and any heirlooms we might have and pretend we're living in the 1930's depression where one of you or your dad is going to die of a preventable disease because I can't afford healthcare anymore", there's little more fat I can cut out of the family budget.

As for depending on my 401K for my retirement, considering the stock market crash hit of almost $50K in my company-provided account - that money that I still consider was stolen from that account through Wall Street exuberence and banking negligence and can never really be recovered at my age - was enough to teach me that "saving" for my retirement in a 401K means that money might only cover a few geriatric medical expenses as I hit my mid seventies and I'll still have to work to survive.
If I retire at 70, even if I raise my contribution to 15% of my pay right now and risk being evicted for an inability to pay rent over the next couple of years, I will still not have enough in that account to support my and my husband's old age without at least Social Security for both of us and Medicare. I've only got $60K in my 401K, from a high of $80K in 2007. If it hadn't dropped $50K during the crash, I'd perhaps have $110K by now. But it's still not enough to retire on, and I'd need at least another 20 years to put it up to a level where I could realize a target income of $50K a year when it would be time to retire - that is, if the market doesn't crash again.
And since my inheiritance will not be very much - mom only has around $600K including the house for her retirement assets, which will have to be split amongst me and my sibling if long-term care doesn't take it all, I can't depend on that for retirement, either. Just like my kids won't be able to depend on any assets of mine as inheiritance.

Honestly, "Consumer investment management" is a scam if the consumer doesn't have the additional income to invest at least 10% - which a good 60% of the working population of the US now does not have. The issue that is always ignored by these Very Serious People and their "financially smart" fellow travellers is that the majority of US households do not reach close to a six figure income on an annual basis anymore. Wages have stagnated while basic living costs (not consumer costs) have gone up.
What was a comfortable working class wage that allowed for a good 15 - 20% extra spending or savings after paying the bills every month in the 1970's through 1990's is now down to a "living paycheck to paycheck wage" where the family has to rob Peter to pay Paul just to keep a roof over the heads, the lights, water, and temperature control on, food in the pantry and gas in the car. If I had been making in the early 1990's what I'm making now, while I'd have lost around $150K during the crash, (just like the total IRA's and retirement CD's my parents had did) but I'd have enough left to perhaps recover the majority of the loss by now due to the compounding.

Sure, telling the mean-income American family that getting rid of the $75 a month family cell phone plan and the $50 a month cable/internet bill may help their ability to save, and selling the car and walking/biking/hitching a ride may add another $200 a month when you add up the insurance and gas costs, but what we're admitting if we mke this sort of savings/sacrifice paradime is that we believe as a consumer-based culture, a household netting $50K a year is a sign of a household that is not working hard enough to earn a modicum of normal dignity or comfort, and they deserve what they get - if they won't sell off assets and cut spending to the bone to save money for retirement, then they deserve to be penalized by the government for not making those cuts, or they deserve to die homeless after they become unemployable and are unable to care for themselves anymore.

It's a standard Calvanist line. I hear it all the time from those who were lucky because they almost criminally charismatic, were in the right place at the right time, knew the right people, or had the money handed to them by being from the right family and don't want to admit how lucky they really were.

"A life lived is worth only by the amount money it can amass, (property being the only true reward on earth for hard work) and it is a disgrace and a sign of sloth to be poor or unemployable." To the Calvanist, it is foolish to care for the afflicted or unlucky in the community; obviously they messed up, so they have to "take responsiblity" for their situation. And no one who is not wealthy enough has the right to retire unless they keep their household to a bare minimum scrambling for the rare bootstrap to pull them out of poverty. Not a dirt floor hut with no electricity or running water starvation-type poverty, because that's the sort of punishment only hard-core criminals should experiance, but a hard, uncertain, workhouse lifestyle sort of poverty where saving to survive when they reach the point they can't work anymore is more important than investing in their children's well-being or futures.
"The poor deserve their short, useless, painful lives because of their own lifestyle choices, right? If they were really good, smart, deserving people, they shouldn't have to work so hard."

I could have experianced six-figure incomes, saved a shitload of money, and made it up to the living standards of top 10% in the US, too - but for luck (and in one particular situation, because of an honest, ethical decision on my part). So I'm down here with the majority of Americans, working my ass off, losing my 401K off bit by bit to Wall Street investment "gurus" and my paycheck to the Insurance/Health Corp. fat cats who spread socialist fears and class warfare whenever there's a threat to their profit margin. After all, they worked really hard making money for themselves off of my hard-earned income - on average more than three times as much from my monthly paycheck than federal and state government does combined. And I certainly don't get as much back from them as I do from the government. Poor investment choices, indeed.


Haele

[still_one]

11. It is a safety net that many are relying upon, especially today.

[dkf]

13. And it's still a safety net.

Landing on a safety net is not a comfortable thing. Certainly not like sleeping on a cloud.

[still_one]

16. no one said it was, and many people need it to survive, especially medicare

[thucythucy]

29. According to the SS website

the average monthly payment in 2012 was $1,230.00.

That comes to something less than 15K a year.

You call that "living on a cloud"?

[xtraxritical]

38. My works history sucks because corporate America screwed me over in my 40s

and I won't get $1100 when I'm fully vested at 66. Yeah, corporate America "nothing personal just business".

[JDPriestly]

32. Social Security pays the average recipient only enough

for a minimal existence. For many of the luckier retirees dependent on Social Security, it's either internet or cable, not both.

Here -- the facts about what Social Security pays:

The average Social Security benefit in January 2012 was:

$1,230 a month for retired workers;
$1,185 a month for widows or widowers over the age of 60;
$1,110 a month for disabled workers;
$1,878 a month for a disabled worker, spouse and one or more young children;
$2,487 a month for a widowed mother and two children.

The maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring at the 2012 full retirement age (66) is $2,366 a month.

http://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/overview

And here is the information about the poverty guidelines (again):

http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html

We need to check our facts before we claim that someone is getting more than they deserve from Social Security. That claim is a lie.

[OGKush]

4. Was social security designed to be used as a living income after someone retires?

Should people be able to live off of social security? If so maybe we all should start paying more into it?

[JDPriestly]

45. On average, Social Security pays just enough to keep seniors from

falling under our poverty guidelines.

Poverty level for one person is $11,400 per year.

http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html

Average Social Security payment for one person was in 2012


$1,230 a month for retired workers;
$1,185 a month for widows or widowers over the age of 60;
$1,110 a month for disabled workers;
$1,878 a month for a disabled worker, spouse and one or more young children;
$2,487 a month for a widowed mother and two children.

The maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring at the 2012 full retirement age (66) is $2,366 a month.

http://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/overview

Fact #4: For two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security provides the majority of their income. For one-third of the elderly, it provides nearly all of their income.

In 2002, Social Security provided 50 percent or more of the income of 66 percent of elderly people (those age 65 or older). Social Security provided 90 percent or more of the income of 34 percent of elderly people. For 22 percent of seniors, Social Security is the sole source of retirement income.[6]

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=531

[OGKush]

47. I understand that the elderly use it to live on, but was it intended for people to live on?

If people are living on it then we should raise what people pay in.

I didn't think it was supposed to be used as a person's sole income.

[JDPriestly]

54. Yes. People used it to live on.

The program was created in the 1930s at the midst of the depression to prevent seniors from dying from hunger.

By itself, it does not provide a "good living." Again, it is just enough to keep the average recipient above the poverty line. Republicans and those who pay attention to Republican lies cannot seem to understand that.

I have posted this a number of times on this thread, but I will post it again for your convenience.

Fact #1: About half of the elderly have incomes that, without Social Security, leave them below the poverty line. Social Security lifts 13 million elderly Americans above the poverty line.

Without Social Security benefits, 46.8 percent of Americans aged 65 and older would have incomes below the poverty line, all else being equal. With Social Security benefits, only 8.7 percent of the elderly do. Some 13 million elderly Americans are lifted out of poverty by Social Security benefits.[2]

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=531

Social Security saves us the cost of maintaining numerous bureaucracies to provide assistance to seniors and others who would be utterly impoverished without the program.

What does Social Security really pay?

The average Social Security benefit in January 2012 was:

$1,230 a month for retired workers;
$1,185 a month for widows or widowers over the age of 60;
$1,110 a month for disabled workers;
$1,878 a month for a disabled worker, spouse and one or more young children;
$2,487 a month for a widowed mother and two children.

The maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring at the 2012 full retirement age (66) is $2,366 a month.

http://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/overview

The federal poverty line is $11,490 per year for one person.

http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html

So Social Security benefits for retired workers keep them just barely above the poverty line. The chained CPI would mean a significant reduction in the benefit for people in their 90s and would throw a lot of them under the poverty threshold and be more trouble than it is worth.

[OGKush]

56. So let's just raise what everyone pays into SS so people who live on it

Are not in poverty.

If people are gonna use it to live on when we should be paying more into it.

[madville]

6. Social Security started out at

A 2% rate with a $3,000 annual income cap. We are now at 12.4% and a $113,700 cap.

It changes over times based on many factors, life expectancy being one of them. Things like eligibility age, inflation, interest rates, etc also play an important role.

There is a balance that has to be maintained and the fulcrum is constantly moving so changes are inevitable. What those changes are depends on which way it needs to go.

[kaiden]

8. Back before Social Security, there were poor farms.

If the retiree did not have money or family (or family that would take him in), the retiree went to the Poor Farm. I remember both sets of my grandparents talking about this and it was as frightening to them then as a nuclear holocaust (or a Romney presidency) is to us today. Now, my grandparents would never have had to go to the Poor Farm, but it was such a boogey man to them in their youth, they never got over it. Social Security was meant to give those people some dignity. And remember that living expenses were so much cheaper then.

And yes, everyone should pay into Social Security. There should be no cap.

[JDPriestly]

48. I have the same memory.

Before the 1930s, we were an agrarian country gradually becoming more and more industrial. Not all, but many people had land -- farms. The banks foreclosed in the 1930s and threw people off their land. They could not eke out a subsistence without help and, having lost their land and livestock, had lost the only things of value that they could sell for cash.

Social Security would have been invented no matter who the president was because the elderly of the time, especially those who had lost their property and savings in the 1929 crash and could not get work, were in dire need.

Today we have a similar situation. Many of those foreclosed are in their 40s and 50s. They lost their jobs (many of them since NAFTA and "free trade" with China), spent down their limited savings and are trying to just survive until they are eligible for Medicare and Social Security.

For Obama and Republicans to consider cuts to Social Security or raising the cost of Medicare -- whether it is the chained CPI or any other veiled cut -- is dastardly.

Many of the under 63s who cannot take early Social Security are in really bad shape. I see them trying to bed down for the night in certain areas of LA. I used to work for a homeless project. These older people do not appear to me to be drug addicts or alcoholics in many cases. They are trying to look respectable, as much as they can living out of cars and raiding trash cans for food.

How far have our politicians sunk? How far have the self-styled "Christian" Republicans sunk? I do not understand why, just 5 years from a terrible recession from which ordinary people have by no means recovered we are hearing about chained CPI and cuts to Medicare.

This is especially true since the headline today is that the stock market is at an all time high. What kind of country? What kind of people are we?

We rarely hear the old refrain, "What would Jesus do?" since Bush crashed the economy. But what would Jesus do? John Boehner and the tea-baggers should ask themselves that question but you don't have to be a Christian to ask that question. Everyone, even the staunchest atheist on DU, knows the answer.

Jesus would not introduce the chained CPI or cut Medicare.

[TheProgressive]

17. Here is a fact for most of us...

As you get older, starting out in your 60's, your body noticeably
starts to lose strength and energy. Not everybody.

I think people should retire *earlier* so that they can enjoy your
senior years. There is more to life that working till you drop. (and
yes, some people like to work - nothing wrong with that)

[dkf]

22. And if you would like to you need to save and sacrifice earlier in life when you are healthy.

[TheProgressive]

25. We enter the workforce recognizing and accepting the fact that

...we pay into Social Security and Medicare and expect it when we retire.
We work - we get SS and Medicare.

Here is the thing about saving and sacrificing... I am a boomer. My parents
we middleclass, had jobs, went on vacation, had food on the table, had a
basic but nice middleclass house (1300 sf). Raised 4 kids... decent to excellent
schools. And a few dollars in the bank..

Very close to the American Dream.

Ok, my point... Now days, since the 1980's, American workers have been under paid.
Stats show where Americans don;t have much money in the bank - either out of lack
of pay or because they spend it stupidly). So, when you say Save and Sacrifice - those
practices are somewhat rare.

[dkf]

26. Yes saving is rare which is why those who do not do so will have only a foothold from SS.

That is how FDR explained it worked. Comfort is achieved through ones individual acts and efforts.

I think people have been tricked onto thinking SS is more than it is.

[TheProgressive]

36. The idea of SS was to insure seniors would not live in poverty...

In the First Great Republican Depression, FDR saw seniors living in poverty.

SS addresses that.

It is always up to the individual to achieve and act responsibly. Sometimes,
bad things happen to good people.

And lets be blunt here - SS is in place so that we don't have *responsible* and irresponsibly
Americans eating cat food.

[HiPointDem]

67. saving is rare because a big chunk of the population doesn't make enough money to save

anything. median individual net compensation = $26K/year.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html

[CTyankee]

27. Bingo! You got it right there. We don't make enough money to retire.

And we were all encouraged to use the equity in our houses as a piggy bank. We ended up doing exactly that because we couldn't have sent a kid to college or even afforded general upkeep of our homes.

[JDPriestly]

49. Sacrificing early won't help you much if your employer

fires you and takes your job to China when you are 55 leaving you to live off your savings until you can finally qualify for a subsistence on Social Security. And God forbid you get sick before you qualify for Medicare.

Let's all live in the real world. I wonder sometimes what the more callous DUers do for a living. They seem to think that money is easy to get and save. It is for the rich, but not for the lower middle class and poor -- which is most of us.

Thanks to the sequester, lots of teachers will lose their jobs. They are supposed to get pensions and they pay into those pensions. Their negotiated salary deals include in their compensation amounts paid into pension funds. Taking their jobs and their pensions is actually taking away money they already earned since the pension benefit is part of their wage agreement. Never mind, to save the corporate loopholes, teachers must be fired. Police officers and firemen -- same fate. And of course what we will get once again is trickle down unemployment, trickle down poverty.

And what will people who live in a wealthy bubble get? The smug satisfaction that they have made the "right choices," are smarter than others and are just fine. Profits for corporations will rise as will the bonuses for the pond scum in our society who live from selling pie-in-the-sky promises of big returns from investments in stocks that are manipulated by the big, wealthy players to pay them well and small investors very little or nothing at all.

Sorry. Seen that game. Know how it works. Edited to remove angry, angry, angry words.

[Skittles]

63. I HEAR YOU JD

these DUers pimping for Cato don't get how they can be doing well and be one layoff or medical disaster away from losing it all

[Capt. Obvious]

24. Death Panels to save SS!

Has Palin gone this route on her Facebook page yet?

[Babel_17]

28. We dealt with the issue of life expectancy

back under Reagan. We boomers and everyone else have paid more to deal with the reality of what is needed. All that's needed now are some relatively modest revenue enhancements.

And let's remember, part of the hit on Social Security was from we boomers making sure that the generation that went through the depression and WWII received more than they payed in.

And another part of the hit on Social Security is from taking care of the dependent children and widows/widowers of contributors. That's because SS is far from being just a retirement fund. SS delivers a social good that would otherwise have to come out of the general revenues if SS didn't pick up the slack.

For decades SS has been paying to millionaires more than they put in. It's because we didn't means test that generation because SS is the greatest program this nation has ever delivered and its a cornerstone of, and is representative of, our great democracy.

The only usefulness of the current manufactured controversy is in helping to highlight in the most visible way who the scoundrels, villains, and fools are in the body politic.

[Greybnk48]

33. Krugman completely debunked that Republican talking point

and referred people to the SS page that explains that the average lifespan of 62 for women and 58 or 59 for men was that low in the 1930's because of high infant mortality rates. If we look at the average lifespan of a man who survived to 21, he could be expected to continue to live to 65, plus 13 years beyond that on SS. For a women it was much longer. And they knew that in the 1930's.

He argued that the Repukes routinely trot this talking point out (I've heard it my whole life), i.e., that most people were not expected to collect their SS after having paid in because most were expected to die before 65.

It's never been publicly shown to be the complete and utter lying bullshit talking point that it is.

Thank you Paul Krugman!

[Babel_17]

39. Some food for thought?

This borders on being off topic but I'd like to propose that when looking at the SS program it's helpful to look at the bigger picture.

The benefits that can be paid are far from being just about what is owed, they are also largely about the degree to which we live in a scarcity economy.

What SS beneficiaries can be paid is going to be determined, in part, by the ability of society to deliver the goods and services that the benefits can buy.

Page upon page can be written upon the implications and ramifications of that.

Cliffs Notes: We can afford to provide food and apartments and electronic gadgets and clothes, etc., to everyone. The personal attention of trained people is another matter. That in part is a demographic issue. It will be supply and demand and the money from SS alone won't/can't buy you that.

And of course there's more than economics to consider. In American politics there's still the cadre that believes that if you look out for everyone then there will be less for those at the top. And the people at the top are the deserving ones. Everyone else, not so much.

[JDPriestly]

52. It used to be that if you had an operation, you had to spend

weeks or at least many days in the hospital to recover.

To operate on your appendix, the made a big incision and after the operation, they kept you in bed for days.

Now, doctors get surgery patients up and on their feet very quickly. Do patients still need nursing care? Yes. But it is provided for far less money and often for a far shorter time.

We forget about the horrible health costs of treating people for disease that are unknown or at least very rare today -- tuberculosis, polio, influenza epidemics (1917-1918?), scarlet fever, etc. Those diseases cost incredible amounts of money.

Today, we are treating cancer and other conditions that were death sentences in the past. Many cancer patients can continue to work to some extent and live at home while receiving care.

As for heart disease, the decline in smoking rates and the increased emphasis on a healthy, balanced exercise plan suggest that is a condition that will be less expensive to treat in the future.

Diabetes is still a problem but the evidence that diabetes can be controlled in many patients through changes to diet and monitoring give hope that diabetic patients will on the average need less treatment in the future. That will mean their care is less expensive.

I recently saw a video of a doctor at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego who has devised a phone or computer app that can do a lot of diagnostic tests at home that we now do at great expense in medical laboratories or doctors' offices. That will save on the cost of medical care.

It appears at this time that the challenge in the future will not be the need for ever more personal care that friends and family cannot provide but rather a lack of jobs for younger people. We may have to shorten the legal workweek quite a bit or something of that sort in order to allocate our wealth and resources. I don't know, but I think that is likely to be the biggest problem outside of climate change for the youth of today.

[Babel_17]

61. The Japanese are big-time investing in robotics

for taking care of patients and the elderly. It looks very promising for the medium term future and a virtual lock in the long run.

Our future economy will be interesting. There are incentives to working and there are compulsions to working. It's nice to be able to afford travel and luxuries, it's essential to be able to get food and housing.

How will the elite adapt when they can't use fear as a motivator?

In part, we destroy our environment so as to accommodate industry, and that's approved by voters who need the jobs they are promised to receive from it.

Part of the fun of being rich is having people desperate to serve you <sarcasm>. I really think that is an undercurrent in a lot of economic debates in this country.

[happyslug]

41. I am tried of addressing the Right Wing agenda, go on the attack, attack the OTHER Big Federal Expense

First, Social Security has the single largest amount of MANDATORY Expenditures in the Federal Budget, that is $817.5 billion dollars in 2012, but one of the SMALLER discretionary spending at $11.8 Billion Dollars.

On the other hand the Defense Department, has even smaller MANDATORY expenditures, only $5.3 Billion dollars, but its "Discretionary" Spending makes the discretionary spending of the SSA look like peanuts (Department of Defense total "Discretionary spending" was $683.0 billion in 2012)

Please note, 2/3rds of the Department of Energy Budget is to make Atomic Weapons, that is 2/3rd of both its MANDATORY Expenditures of $42.3 billion and its $1.7 billion for its "Discretionary" Spending (Through given the nature of the DOE, Atomic bombs are more in the MANDATORY Expenditures then the Discretionary expenditures). One of the reason for this split is to keep such weapons production budget out of the Department of Defense Budget, to keep it smaller then the Social Security Budget.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

The same with Homeland Security and its MANDATORY Expenditures of $58.8 and Discretionary Expenditures of $1.6 Billion dollar budget. If you add both to Defense, it outspends Social Security, if you keep them separate Social Security is the biggest single item in the budget.

The issue should NOT be Social Security, point out that Social Security TAXES bring in more then we spend on SOCIAL SECURITY and that has been the case since at least the 1980s.

Furthermore, except for 1959 (Due to the Recession of 1957-1959), 1961, 1962, 1965, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980 and 1981 (11 years out of 75 years), Social Security has always taken in more money then it spend since it was founded in 1937 . The "Reforms" of 1981, which raise the rates to the rates we see today, were intended to keep Social Security profitable till the baby boomers die off and since 1981 the Social Security has always run a surplus.

The highest Deficit was $5,272 Million Dollars ($5.2 Billion) in 1976, Compared to the 2006 Surplus of $190,388 Million Dollars (190 Billion Dollars) surplus (2006 was the highest surplus,
http://www.ssa.gov/history/tftable.html

Thus the problem with the Budget is NOT Social Security, UNLESS you want to use Social Security Taxes for Defense Spending, then "Wasting" Social Security Taxes on Social Security must be avoided. Right now the Social Security has $2.5 TRILLION Dollars surplus and is still taking in more money then it is putting out (But that is NOT expected to las much longer).

Please note, the Army Corp of Engineers budget is also OUTSIDE the budget of the Defense Department, again to minimize the DOD Budget, even for improvements done to Military bases in addition to the locks and Dams the Corp of Engineers build and maintain.

Thus the problem is Congress can NOT longer depend on Social Security Taxes to pay for Defense Spending. Worse, Congress has to raise INCOME TAXES to pay back all the money it borrowed from Social Security.

Thus the argument should be, how much we are willing to Cut Defense, if they say NO, point out that means a cut in Social Security payouts, so that Social Security Taxes can be used to pay for DEFENSE SPENDING. The GOP will want to change the subject and even deny the use of Social Security taxes for Defense Spending, but then ask them HOW is Congress going to pay back all the money it borrowed from Social Security since 1981?

Stay on the offensive, ask what would the Congress person cut to balance the budget, from the items NOT paid for by Social Security taxes?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

http://www.concordcoalition.org/learn/budget/federal-budget-pie-charts

[JDPriestly]

53. Thanks, happyslug. The truth is our best argument.

Facts are the enemy of the Republican lies.

Great post. You should start a thread with it.

[pansypoo53219]

43. INCOME WAS A LOT LESS WHEN GREENSPUD + REAGAN 'FIXED' SS.

they did not TIE FICA to INFLATION! raise it to what inflation has + TIE it to inflation!!!!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

46. As I've said repeatedly, It's not that people are living longer...

It's that they aren't dying younger. The whole "Life Expectancy" is from cradle to grave. Bike helmets, car seats, polio being cured, antibiotics, flu shots, even knowing how to put a baby in a crib to prevent "crib death" have all increased the number of kids able to live into adulthood. Then there's basic job safety where workers aren't being exposed to toxic environments and unsafe working conditions as much as they once were.

Republicans twist the figures on this the way they twisted the intelligence to claim we had to invade Iraq before Saddam could hand over his nukes to bin Laden.

[HiPointDem]

66. Men who reach age 65 are living an average of 2.6 years longer; women an average of 4.9 years

longer. Together average = roughly 3.75 years longer.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

already adjusted for 2 of those years, so the big 'free ride' = 1.75 years and they want to make people work until they're 70 to get full benefits -- i.e. they want to make it *worse* than when SS was founded.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

68. They are perpetuating the myth that it was intended you die before you get it....

Then they claim in the name of being "traditionalists" that they are restoring the original intent.

Republicans want us all to die.

Real "culture of life" guys all right.

[HiPointDem]

69. and they'd like to steal our paychecks in the process.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

70. Thought they already did that through the rent....

[Tom Rinaldo]

50. Great OP. K&R n/t

[avaistheone1]

51. Funny...Ida May Fuller (September 6, 1874 – January 31, 1975) was the FIRST American to receive a

monthly benefit Social Security check. She received that first check, amounting to $22.54, on January 31, 1940.

Fuller was born on a farm outside Ludlow, Vermont. She spent most of her life in Ludlow, working as a legal secretary, but lived with her niece in Brattleboro, Vermont during her last eight years. She retired in 1939, having paid just three years of payroll taxes. She received monthly Social Security checks until her death in 1975 at age 100. By the time of her death, Fuller had collected $22,888.92 from Social Security monthly benefits, compared to her contributions of $24.75 to the system. She later said about going to the Social Security office, "It wasn't that I expected anything, mind you, but I knew I'd been paying for something called Social Security and I wanted to ask the people in Rutland about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_May_Fuller

Sooo...even though average life expectancy may have been 62 years of age many people lived beyond that. Ida May Fuller is a prime example. She received her first check at 66 when the average retiree has already died, and she went on to collect Social Security benefits for almost 40 years!! Furthermore, her lifetime contribution to Social Security was only $24.75, yet she received a grand total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits during her retirement. What all this all says to me is that Social Security is a sound insurance system. There are some people who will live a great deal longer than the government averages yet the Social Security system can cope with it. The system has always been supported by the upcoming generation. And the program has historically been strengthened by tweaks to keep it viable. I think it is time to tweak the system again to support it, not chip away at it. I don't think the baby boomers should be made to suffer as they have paid more into the system than any previous generation.I believe successive generations should enjoy these same benefits and the cap should be lifted on Social Security contributions.



Ida May Fuller

[SheilaT]

57. More to the point about that life expectancy,

it was so low because in the 1930's vastly more people died at very early ages. Infant and child mortality was well above what it is now. No antibiotics, so lots of things killed that don't today. And so on. However, someone who lived to age 50 back then stood an excellent chance of making it to 70 or even 85. Now, very few of us die as infants or young children. Almost all of us live to grow up and work.

People likewise misunderstand life expectancy from the distant past. At various times it was as low as 21. Not because people matured at a vastly faster rate, but because so very many never lived to see their second birthday.

All that said, I am not in favor of raising the age to collect Social Security, and I am in favor of Medicare for All.

[Igel]

58. Expectation of life has increased quite a bit since then.

The "life expectancy" argument is specious, as Krugman points out.

Then he acts as though it's entirely cogent, since it's fairly easy to dispatch a strawman with great dexterity.

Expectation of life is a good term of art for the chance of living to age Y if you're at age X.

But there's also another side to the increase in expectancy of life. Generations before my father's retired from the steelmill they worked at and typically died within a few years. If one lived to 70 it was fairly surprising. Small pensions from many could provide for generous pensions. Many a mickle makes a much, as the proverb goes. My father's generation lived to 70 regularly. They needed a lot of "muches", and had comparatively fewer "mickles."

Same with FICA. Expectation of life has increased, making for fewer workers. The Reagan FICA increase was to accommodate this. Between inflation, decreased population growth, using FICA to cover more things and more people the trust fund will run out. Long before that, there'll be a huge long-term cash flow crunch, even as other expenses demand to be met.

I expect to retire at age 75, provided I can work that long.

[HiPointDem]

65. In 1940 average male life expectancy for those who reached age 65 = 12.7 years. and more

than half of males who made it to age 21 also made it to age 65.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

[kentuck]

60. And people were paying a very small amount into the fund.

The 7.5% paid today by employees is still a small amount for the return. When the employment rate is good, this is more than enough to pay for the program. As it is now, benefits will need to be cut by 25% if nothing is done.

[HiPointDem]

64. +1

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html