Raising Social Security's retirement age is a disaster for the poor

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

There are few policies as popular with politicians, but unpopular with voters, as raising Social Security's retirement age. It's a perennial feature of bipartisan budget negotiations — the Simpson-Bowles report proposed it, for instance — and both Jeb Bush and Chris Christie have endorsed it. If establishment Washington has a platform, raising the Social Security retirement age is squarely at its core.

To its advocates, raising the Social Security age seems like common sense: it helps balance the program's books, and since Americans are living longer anyway, it's more like a technical adjustment to the program than an actual cut. The idea that anyone might disagree is borderline unthinkable.

"If you can't raise the retirement age to 68 by the year 2050 without the AARP losing their marbles," said former Senator Alan Simpson, co-chair of the Simpson-Bowles commission, then the country just "won't make it."

Americans disagree. A 2012 Pew poll found that 56 percent of Americans opposed even gradually raising the Social Security retirement age — more than opposed cutting military spending, or increasing taxes, or reducing Medicare benefits for richer seniors. In 2014, the National Academy of Social Insurance performed an even more detailed survey and found that 75 percent of Americans opposed raising the retirement age to 70. Hell, even self-identified Tea Partiers would prefer to raise taxes than raise the Social Security retirement age.


http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirement/raising-social-securitys-retirement-age-is-a-disaster-for-the-poor/ar-AAbuREE

Yet many politicians still don't get it.

[AuntPatsy]

1. So true

[Sherman A1]

3. Precisely

[B2G]

2. It's no picnic for the middle class either. nt

[raging moderate]

4. Most of us are not living longer. That is only a few of us. The average is pretty stable.

The fact that medical science is able to postpone death by a couple of decades for a lucky few (mostly rich) people has been used to spread an outrageous lie that we have to cut Social Security because we are all going to live to 90 and draw benefits for 25 years. The is totally false! We should all be combatting this vicious lie. The average age at death has not risen significantly. In fact, it has gone down for a few subgroups.

[Koinos]

5. RIP

The poor won't live long enough to collect, which is what the rich intend anyway.

[libdem4life]

6. Hell, I had to wait until I was 21 to vote, then had to wait until 66 to get SS. I think

i was the second year...born in 1948. My sister will have to wait until 67 and she's just 61 and really having a hard time working.

[Warpy]

7. It's a disaster for anybody who doesn't work at a DESK

My body gave out when I was 56 and I went blind at 57 and they wanted me to wait until 70?

Morons. We need to lower it to 55 for partial benefits so people don't drain their savings like I did, just to stay alive for a few more years.

Desk jockeys, especially those with especially cushy desk jobs like Congress, can cling to their desks as long as they want to--and do. The rest of us need the age LOWERED, not raised!

[Oilwellian]

8. It also delays job availability...

for young adults entering the workforce.

There is only one reason why SS numbers aren't jiving. When Reagan doubled the SS tax as a means to supplement the large Boomer retirement, instead of saving that surplus, they decided to spend it. Each and every administration since Reagan, are responsible for spending what should have been a $2.7 trillion surplus in the SS coffers today. Now it's time to pay the Boomer Piper and all that's there are butterflies.

Instead of doing the right thing and paying the IOUs back, they want to take it out of our hide, yet again. I remember when we lost that additional 3% of our paycheck at the time and it made things really tight as a young couple raising three babies. We have religiously paid the additional 3% for decades now and that amounts to a pretty penny. I'd like to know where that $2.7 trillion went.

[econoclast]

9. There IS a surplus

I hear this all the time " they spent the surplus". "There is nothing in the SSTF but IOUs"

No

They did what any competent money manager does when they have cash to invest and absolutely, positively cannot lose a dime of that principal ... They invest the cash in US Treasuries.

In the case of the SSTF, it isn't even a choice. The SSTF is required by law to invest any cash surpluses in US Treasuries. It has been that was since FDR in the 1930's.

[marle35]

10. "If you can't raise the retirement age to 68 by the year 2050..."

How nice. I turn 67 in 2050. I would be one of the first affected by the change.

The retirement age should never have risen past 65.