If You Are A Baby Boomer - the real reason YOU SHOULD BE FURIOUS over CPI cuts:

[truedelphi]

The fact of the matter remains that when so many of us entered t the workforce - some 40 to 45 years ago, the contract that the nation presented to us was this one - Pay into Social Security, and then WHEN YOU TURN SIXTY FIVE, you will receive your retirement earnings, until the day you die. But now that contract has been trampled, and we have to wait till we are SIXTY SEVEN!

While so much discussion has gone on and on over the CPI cuts, and great amounts of noise over what percentage should be used to cut retirement benefits further, the fact remains - two entire years of benefits - 100% of those benefits times Two! - has been removed from the receipt column of those of us about to retire. And this fact is barely being mentioned! The Baby Boomers have already taken their damn hit!

Thirteen percent of all Baby Boomers have already died - so I don't even know if the label of "The largest generation of Americans" applies. We have been decimated by the War in Vietnam, that ate up the young men of our generation, not only in Vietnam on the battlefield, but over the next decades through the effects of PTSD , Agent orange-related cancers, suicide etc, so that more than 150,000 of us were done in. Then came the decade of AIDS. And now cancer has taken its toll. My two best friends both died before they reached their sixtieth birthday.

And if the Government "Elected" Officials who claim that they are so powerful and awesome have to cut our benefits further, I give up.

[WillyT]

1. HUGE K & R !!!

[Scuba]

2. Sush, prole. The 1% wants that money and they have the power to take it. Now just shush.

Otherwise you're just a "fucking retard" dreaming of unicorns and rainbows.

[hfojvt]

141. it's an absurd OP

the change in the retirement age is from 1983 - thirty years ago, and the retirement age has been sliding up. Well, it went to 66 for people born 1943-1954 and the change to 67 is for people born in 1960. People who were 23 when the change was made. So they had not been working for very long when the retirement age was changed. It wasn't like they were working for twenty years and then were suddenly told "hey, you have to work two more years".

Myself, though, I was born in 1962 and still plan to retire when I am 55 and collect social security when I am 62. By my calculations that is a much better deal than retiring at either 67 or 70.

[upaloopa]

3. I don't understand how Social Security is part of the

spending problem.
The money to fund payments comes from deductions to the pay checks of those now working.
If you cut the benefit and not the deduction who gets the difference?

[n2doc]

8. That money goes to the rich and big biz

How do you think they can keep subsidizing oil companies, agribiz and defense contractors? They all need to keep increasing their profits by double digits each year!

[jeff47]

12. It isn't.

The fear is that in 20 years or so, Social Security might only be able to pay 70% of benefits.

So to ensure that doesn't happen, very serious people want to cut benefits now.

It should be noted that the 20-year window has been moving forward with the passage of time. As in it's still twenty years despite the fact that 4 years have passed.

[Zen Democrat]

32. In 20 years, a lot of Boomers will be gone.

The generations coming up are some of the smallest. That's why there's a crunch now. But after Boomers are gone, Social Security will be solvent forever, unless there's another Boom in the future.

[jeff47]

35. Under there scenario, it's stable at 70% of current benefits forever

Their scenario includes things like average growth of 1%/year......growth over a 20 year window hasn't averaged that low since the 1800s, and that required a 10-year recession to be in the window.

But the important part is even with their doomsday version, they can't manage to make the trust fund broke - the doomsday keeps moving off into the future.

[Hestia]

74. Last I read, this is how the generational population breaks down

Baby Boomers 80,000,000
Gen X 45,000,000
Millennial 84,000,000

[TM99]

84. And this describes the true situation

with regards to these potential cuts.

Baby boomers, in the end, are going to be just fine. Even with CPI and other cuts, most are in retirement or nearing retirement. Your benefits are there. And I am glad.

The Millennial's are screwed, true that, however, they are young enough to look for savings options or political ones to change things long before they retire.

The ones truly screwed are us Generation X'ers. Most of us are now well into our forties and pushing 50. By the time any serious cuts are made, we will be left with very little. We will not see retirement benefits at 65 and will likely be forced to work possibly a decade longer. And we are too old to get those extra savings necessary for our survival in old age. We are also going to have a generation twice our size at our heels demanding jobs that we are all having a hard time finding. Boomers are already seeing how difficult it has become for those over 50 to get jobs. My generation will experience that in spades in the next decade and a half.

I am not angry at Boomers or Millennials about this situation. I am angry at the politicians on both sides, Democratic and Republican alike, beholden to the corporate 1% who are not just greedy but sociopathically so. I know many Boomers who do care about the generations coming up behind them. I have not met as many Millennials who feel the same as they have gotten so much and expect so much from this technological and socially connected age. This cycle of austerity will not last forever, as no cycle ever does. But will my generation, as small as it is and sandwiched between two others, be able to survive it?

I suppose we shall see what happens won't we?

[sabrina 1]

87. No one is screwed, Millenials (who the hell comes up with these terms btw?)

or anyone else. SS is the most successful and stable fiscal program in this country and is in no danger of 'running out of money'. The fund right now has more than a two trillion dollar surplus and even in this economy has still produced a surplus every single year.

You are buying into the fear mongering by the enemies of SS on the Right, people like Pete Petersen and his cohorts who have been greedily eyeing this fund for decades, using every ploy they can buy with their vast fortunes to make people think that the SS is in 'trouble'. It is not. They want to get their greedy hands on that fund to privatize it and invest in the Gambling Casino on Wall St, known as 'The Market'.

The fact is that they have stolen, borrowed for the fund to pay for their wars for profit and for tax cuts for the wealthy which alone cost the American people over two trillion dollars over the past decade.

SS is solvent even in this economy and will be able to pay out its full obligations to those who own, that is US, ALL OF US, millenials, baby boomers and whoever else is paying into it, for the next 70 years or so. But the thieves who borrowed from it to pay for their 'hobbies' such as Bush's wars and his tax cuts, do not want to pay it back so they are using scare tactics to divide people, they are lying about the SS fund to put it bluntly.

To pay back what they stole/borrowed would mean 'no more tax cuts for the wealthy' and 'no more illegal wars for profit'. THAT is what caused the deficit btw and the Wall St. corruption that collapsed the economy for which no one has yet been held accountable.

SS is fine, everyone, including those entering the work force right now, will get their benefits, UNLESS we believe the lies and allow them to privatize that fund.

[TM99]

92. I really didn't need a tirade.

Last edited Tue Mar 5, 2013, 08:09 AM - Edit history (1)

I am quite aware of the economic realities of the social security fund, how it has been abused, and the lies and propaganda on both sides.

Most Americans and both political parties have bought hook, line, and sinker into 'austerity'.

You have faith that if we don't fall for the lies, we are all ok. I can respect that, really I do.

However, I just don't agree with you. The lies have been fallen for already. Sequester has occurred. Obama is now looking for a 'compromise' that will involve 'cuts' that Democrats claim to not want and Republicans are chomping at the bit to enact. I see nothing positive in the future for this country's political machine or its economic realities for those not in the top 10%.

If you are right and others can be woken up, then it won't matter what I stated. If I am right, then that reality is there. Boomers will make it under the wire, Millennials will need to plan for new options, and Generation Xer's will need to accept a very difficult and austere future indeed. I am a realist. I plan for problems and worst case scenarios so that I can enjoy what I may of family and life.

I am not buying into 'fear mongering'. I am accepting that the time for optimistic hope or pessimistic fear is long past. Now comes the acceptance and dealing with a system that is broken and has been for decades now, a country that is woefully out of balanced with regards to income distribution and getting worse not better, and an increasingly unintelligent and 'sleeping' populace more interested in Downton Abbey, Honey Boo Boo, and the next great iDevice than anything else including the environment, the economy, education, liberty, and their fellow Americans.

[dixiegrrrrl]

96. "SS is fine".......except:

The purchasing power of the SS payments has been eroded by over 50% and will continue to erode, each year.
It is the "invisible" theft of retirement income.

[sabrina 1]

111. That can be fixed by raising the cap and providing jobs here starting with

ending subsidies and tax breaks for those who take jobs out of the country among other things, but even considering that, SS is not in any immediate danger, nor as you know, did it have anything to do with the deficit and should not be even mentioned in these debates.

[TM99]

114. I agree with you that this could work,

but the question remains how to get the politicians on both sides to do these sorts of remedies.

In 2011 when the Sequester was proposed, both sides stood up on national television and said it would never, ever, positively, occur. A compromised and balanced budget agreed to by all would surely pass and this was just a way to 'hold their feet to the fire' so to speak.

Flash forward to 2013 and they all lied. Reid could have helped with Filibuster reform but gave up without even trying.

Who is fighting seriously for those of us who need their help?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

118. Another big chunk of "lost" revenue

Is that interest, dividends, and capital gains are not taxed under Social Security or Medicare.

This is a good argument for a "transaction tax" on Wall Street, with the proceeds going to support the system.

[PasadenaTrudy]

110. Hmmmm

I'm 49 and a Boomer, born in '64...

[TM99]

113. You are the last year of Boomers.

From then on is Generation X. So no discrepancy with what I shared as far as ages.

[Babel_17]

123. "a generation twice our size"

That's good news, actually. Right now we are looking at a one time demographic bump in the road. The boomers are numerous but after their arrival the nation started moving to a more sustainable growth in population.

Your generation is going to be a great fit, at retirement age, for the economy you'll be living in.

The forces that hate government are using all the propaganda at their disposal to strike now at SS. They know that once the easy fixes are put in place the issue will be dead forever.

Better days are coming.

[truedelphi]

15. I tried to let people know in another OP I had

That this first round of "sequestration" some 80 billions of dollars plus, is almost the exact amount of monies to be lent out to one bank over the same time period!

Additionally, how odd is the following?:

The Bernie Sanders-insisted-upon-audit of the Federal Reserve let the American people know that Bernanke lent out some 15 to 16 trillions of dollars to The Biggest Banks, not just American Banks, but overseas banks as well. This amount is about 4 trillions of dollars more that the entire GDP of our nation for a single year!

Experts now tell us that some 4.7 trillions of dollars of these loans will NEVER be paid back. (It is also worth considering that when a bank does do a payback, often they are allowed a tax credit for the entire amount paid back! This is handled through special legislation tacked onto some other piece of legislation, so they get full tax credit for repaying the loan principal. Wouldn't it be nice if when you or I paid off our 22.5 % credit card in full, we got credit on the principle we paid off!) It was through this type of maneuvering that Wells Fargo basically paid for the purchase of Wachovia - knowing that that the entire purchase payment would be rebated back to them by the wonderful workings of our tax code and our Congress critters giving them special handling.

Anyway, the deficit hawks now say we need to trim Federal Government spending by 4.1 trillions of dollars, over ten years. Remember how above I said that the Big Banks would never pay back some 4.7 trillions of dollars? So why not just force the banks that won't pay us back to start paying us back? At this point, after watching twelve million people have their homes foreclosed, I am more afraid of the Big Banks than Al Queda! If our government can tag the bank accounts of Bin Laden family members or the bank accounts belonging to Iran, so those accounts are seized, why can't our government seize these trillions of dollars? And leave our Social Security and MediCare programs alone!

[JDPriestly]

49. Excellent post!

TrueDelphi, I love your posts. Very intelligent. Very informative.

[WCGreen]

51. I am amazed at how blatant "our" representatives are with the hand wringing and the

anti-social security bullshit.

[chervilant]

97. Just after

the Feds changed their reporting of M1, M2, etc, I asked friends and colleagues to consider why they were no longer publishing data that would enable the savvy among us to suss out how much money they're printing.

We're supposed to be mushrooms, you know: kept in the dark and fed a load of bullshit.

[DhhD]

39. It is loaned out on IOUs. And they are trying as hard as they can to get their paid congress

person to fix it so they will not have to pay the loan back after they have made a fortune using it.

[ThomThom]

58. also we paid twice

once for our parents and Reagan made us pay for our own by doubling the withholding

[customerserviceguy]

62. That's the only thing that kept Social Security going this long

Raising the taxes and the wage base, just as the baby boomers were entering their most productive years. Now that it's our turn, and we haven't reproduced enough to keep the pyramid going, we're left holding the bag.

I said years ago, if the baby boom generation doesn't find a way to head off the crisis that it's plummeting towards, our grandchildren's generation will want to put a bullet through our skulls to avoid paying us, and we just might deserve it.

Crunch time, people, there's no way around it.

[socialist_n_TN]

63. So we should be shot BECAUSE we paid more into SS? Or........

should we be shot because we've lived long enough to draw it? Or both?

BTW, interesting choice of words there. As in "pyramid". Isn't that what all the RWers call SS?

I do agree that it's coming to crunch time though. If we want to sustain it and, for that matter, ALL of the New Deal, we've got to take the money from the people who stole it cause WE certainly don't have any. As Willie Sutton said, "That's where the money is."

[customerserviceguy]

66. No, we had years to figure out how to get past the baby boom

and we blew it. We could have introduced chained CPI two decades ago, and inflation has been pretty low in that time, it wouldn't have made too much of a difference. We could have adoped Al Gore's lockbox idea, but that went by the wayside, too.

No, reich wingers call it a Ponzi scheme. There's a difference, with a Ponzi scheme, those who get paid have no idea that their money is coming from current "investors", with a pyramid scheme, everybody knows that their money comes from new folks who buy into the plan. Everybody thinks they won't be left holding the bag when it all comes crashing down. That time is coming rapidly.

That whole "take the money from the people who stole it" meme is a common theme I see among those who deny the problems Social Security and Medicare face. They posit that there is a vast sum of money sitting around somewhere that will make the systems whole, and they also suppose that there is a mechanism to transfer that imaginary pot of gold to "the people". Doesn't exist, and even if it did, there is no practical political way to get it into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

The time for continued denial is growing short.

[socialist_n_TN]

67. Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky......

There's some proscriptions.

[rhett o rick]

77. That's crap. We baby boomers paid double rates because of our numbers.

Before we came along the young paid for the old. No trust fund. But is was decided that WE would pay more. Not just pay for the old but also put some in a trust fund for OURSELVES. The so-called trust fund was our money for us. And now people are worried that we will drain the trust fund of OUR money that we put away to cover ourselves. So they want to cut our benefits so we wont drain all of OUR MONEY from the trust fund. Bullcrap.

Here is a quick accounting lesson for the idiots. We paid into SS for decades. That money is shown in the SS account as a 2 plus trillion surplus. In the mean time others spent trillions on wars, medicare for big pharm and tax breaks. Those accounts are in the red trillions. If you want to balance the books, raise the fucking taxes to pay for your goddamm wars.

[customerserviceguy]

93. If that money had truly been invested in something solid, you might have a point

Instead, Social Security has been a giveaway program for people who paid pittances into it, and got many thousand times their "investment" back.

That two trillion accounting ledger gimmick is nothing compared to the unfunded liability of Social Security. Ultimately, we're probably going to have to inflate our way out of this, by creating fake money through things like the quantitative easing programs that have been done for the last few years. That will wipe out the two trillion in a couple of years, as COLAs kick in for waves of baby boom retirements.

Politically, there's no way to achieve the budget surpluses that we saw at the end of the Clinton years that are the only realistic way to pay this back without inflation.

[rhett o rick]

94. There is no "unfunded liability". That's a conservative talking point.

The accounting trick, as you call it just means that SS has a positive balance and the wars have a negative balance. That's basic accounting. The conservatives want to use the positive balance of SS to cancel out the negative balance of the war account.
The conservative wars were unfunded and need to be paid off with new taxes not stealing from SS.

[customerserviceguy]

130. If it's a "talking point"

then the Social Security Administration is talking about it:

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/ran1/an2008-1.pdf

And that report was dated July 2008, just before the economic shit hit the fan. I'd venture to say that things have gotten worse than the way that the rose-colored-glasses-wearing Social Security Trustees saw it nearly five years ago.

[rhett o rick]

133. Did you read the report? I am a simple minded person.

When the multi-trillion dollar trust fund starts to get to zero, then let me know. Until that time, peddle your chicken-little fear else where.

And we need to raise a war tax as soon as possible.

[customerserviceguy]

136. I did read it

But, I used to be a tax accountant, and perhaps I can digest a report like that better than most folks. Here's something that might put the problem in more of what would be layman's terms:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/is-our-debt-burden-really-100-trillion/265644/

I could cite other sources, like Forbes, Politico and Bloomberg, but you'd probably attack them as being right wing. The progressive side seems to have its head in the sand when it comes to this subject.

And by the time the fund gets to zero, it's way, way too late to do anything about that. I'd prefer we did something about it now.

[rhett o rick]

137. The trust fund was INTENDED to go to zero. The system was designed

to operate "pay as you go". The trust fund was special, forcing us baby-boomers to help pay for ourselves.

If you are worried, then raise the cap. Never even consider cutting benefits.

"The progressives side..." So you dont claim to be progressive? What are you then? What issues dont you agree with progressives?

[customerserviceguy]

138. It's going to get there a lot quicker than you think

Pay as you go is fine for a pyramid scheme that needs ever increasing numbers of people paying in. Even if it was structured as a non-pyramidal plan, when you have a shrinking wage base of a stable or declining work force, it would collapse.

Yes, I don't identify with the average progressive position as expressed by 99% of the people here. I don't simply assume it will always be there because it always has been there. I see the limits that demographics puts on it, and I'd like to head off the coming crisis if it's at all possible.

We need a combination of reforms in tax, spending and entitlement policies in order to deal with the coming realities. The sooner it gets done, the less ultimate pain there is going to be.

[rhett o rick]

139. It's me, not you. I am doing terrible making my point obviously.

Pay-as-you-go means that the revenue is balanced against expenditures. If expenses go up, you raise the revenue. It has nothing to do with a pyramid or Ponzi scheme. Maybe the dozens of article on the internetz that debunk the right-wing talking point that SS is a Ponze scheme.

"Some critics of Social Security seem to equate it with a Ponzi scheme because the growth of payouts depends on growth of the number of future taxpayers, in the case of Social Security, or future investors, in the case of classic Ponzi schemes. By this definition, Social Security is a Ponzi scheme — and so are the private investment accounts that many conservatives propose as an alternative to Social Security."

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/09/09/is-social-security-a-ponzi-scheme/social-security-as-a-ponzi-its-a-bad-metaphor

When you say that it will "go quicker than you think", are you referring to the trust fund? Once again the trust fund was a surplus designed to take care of the baby-boomer bulge. When the baby-boomers are gone the trust fund should be gone also. It will have done it's job. It was designed to go to zero when the baby-boomers died out.

Your use of right-wing talking points doesnt help your argument.

Are you in favor of raising the cap?

[customerserviceguy]

142. And if we had the expanding economies of the 50's, 60's

and most of the 70's through the 90's, then things might have stayed in balance. Also, if the boomers had managed to reproduce at the rates their parents did, we'd be in fine shape right now. With the workforce shrinking, and their paychecks shrinking as well (relative to inflation), we're going to hit the wall sooner than even the rosy predictions of the Social Security Trustees.

Right now, there is NO money coming in to that fund in excess of the amounts it's paying out. The only thing that has kept it in balance is some interest payments, which of course have to be borrowed in part. When interest rates go up (they cannot possibly go down any lower than they are now) this will be a major drain on the Federal budget for all sorts of interest spending. If we get even a normal amount of inflation, as measured by post WWII figures, COLA's will dissolve that surplus in a few years. And the only possible ways of redeeming the specialized Treasury securities is to either borrow more (using traditionally negotiable securities like T-notes and T-bills) run budget surpluses, or inflate the currency. That last option is the default one.

Do the math: The peak of the baby boom was 1957. By the time they hit full-benefits retirement age at 66 1/2 years, it will be 2023. In other words, we will have increasing numbers of people reaching Social Security retirement age for the next TEN years. Even the receeding side of the boom (it was figured by most demographers as being over with by 1964) means we have another seven years of high numbers of retirees. Yes, some will work longer, but others, unable to find work in their sixties, will take the early retirement option. And most of the boomers will still be living and collecting benefits by the time the baby boom has finished entering the system. The life expectancy for the leading edge, those born in 1946, is eighty five years old. Two decades from now, almost half of them will still be with us.

Yes, I am in favor of raising the cap, but carefully. Right now, the maximum monthly benefit is tied to that cap, and I don't want to see boomer CEO's paying a few tens of thousands for the next few years, just to get hundreds of thousands per year for the next 20-30 after that. Right now, the payouts are determined in tiers, we need to keep dropping the payout tiers for whatever we raise the cap to. And no, I certainly don't think that raising the cap is going to bring in all that much money. How many people do you know who make more than that cap?

Also, calling someone else's arguments "right wing talking points" is a poor substitute for refuting those statements. Mathematics doesn't do politics.

[rhett o rick]

150. I am not sure where you are getting this, but in my opinion it's gibberish.

The reproduction rate of baby-boomers isnt the problem with revenue for SS. The fact that Republicans moved our jobs to China means our unemployed arent paying into SS.

You said: "then things might have stayed in balance" what balance are you referring to?

You said: "Right now, there is NO money coming in to that fund in excess of the amounts it's paying out." So??

You said: "Mathematics doesn't do politics." Ok, but politics sometimes messes with the math.

If you are truly concerned then raise the cap. Never, I say never even consider reducing benefits.

[customerserviceguy]

156. There are a number of problems

I contend that baby boomer reproduction rates were part of it, and I certainly acknowledge that when you replace union-wage jobs with McJobs that pay near-minimum wages you get less money to tax. The balance I refer to is Social Security taking in as much (or more) than it's paying out in benefits. That balance was pretty solid for decades, only a few times did the Trust Fund have to be dipped into to make good on benefits. There was enough slack in it to get us through fairly brief recessionary periods, then good paying jobs came back and restored balance.

Imagine your own finances with a savings account, and a sudden drop in income. Say you became part-time, or your employer cut wages, etc. You could maintain your style of living by making up the difference from your savings account, and if the part-time thing is temporary, or you get another better paying job, yes, you'll be fine. But what if those things never pan out for you? At some point, you're going to run out of savings.

As I've said on other posts, raise the cap carefully. Create a new tier of payback for that raise, don't let the rich pay unlimited FICA for a few years, then collect tens of thousands in benefits a month just because they managed to pay high amounts for a bit of time. As the maximum benefit is tied to the wage base one pays on, it needs to be adjusted carefully. Make it so there is NO cap on the employer's side of FICA.

There are a number of tweaks we need to do, I don't throw any of them out.

[reteachinwi]

158. SS was means tested in 1993

I don't want to see boomer CEO's paying a few tens of thousands for the next few years, just to get hundreds of thousands per year for the next 20-30 after that.

This is either incorrect or propaganda on your part.

The lie here is the assertion that a significant portion of benefits goes to multimillionaires. In fact, their share of benefits is minuscule. That's because there aren't very many of them, and they don't get more than the maximum old-age benefit, which was $30,156 last year. According to the IRS, only 47,732 households reported income of more than $1 million, including Social Security benefits, in 2010. Their total take was about $1 billion, after paying income tax on their Social Security checks. They account for about 14 hundredths of one percent of all Social Security outlays.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20130310,0,883000,full.column

A4. In 1993, legislation was enacted which had the effect of increasing the tax put in place under the 1983 law. It raised from 50% to 85% the portion of Social Security benefits subject to taxation; but the increased percentage only applied to "higher income" beneficiaries. Beneficiaries of modest incomes might still be subject to the 50% rate, or to no taxation at all, depending on their overall taxable income.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/InternetMyths2.html

Your claimed background as an accountant or tax preparer means you would know this.

[customerserviceguy]

161. I stopped doing taxes in 1990

And I never had to do any calculations for anyone drawing a taxable income and Social Security since then. I did know about means testing through the higher percentage of Social Security being used in figuring how to tax this once untaxed income. I do recall that part of the "logic" of the 50% inclusion of Social Security benefits was that half of a person's benefits came from their own taxed wages, the other half came from their employer and was not income-taxed to the employee at the time it was "earned". As you can see, that logic went out the window in 1993.

But I can still do math.

In any case, even if a wealthy individual had 85% of their Social Security benefit of whatever amount included in their taxable income, and they were in the renewed top tax bracket of 39.6%, that means they'd still keep nearly two thirds of that money. You can't argue that is insignificant.

Also, do you disagree with my contention that we need to find some way to limit the amount of the maximum benefit if we are going to raise the cap significantly, or eliminate it entirely? Under present law, more money paid in by the FICA tax payer means more money eventually coming to him or her when calculating the monthly benefit. That's why I say that it should be done carefully.

[FogerRox]

125. SS is a giveaway program? That Sir, needs a citation or an apology for making craap up.

[customerserviceguy]

131. Leaving alone the most infamous case of Ida May Fuller

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

There have been numerous instances where people were allowed to pay in relatively small sums in payroll withholding (or most notoriously, self-employment tax) in order to be able to collect minimum benefit for a mere pittance. No, they're not doing it that way anymore, but my own ex-wife is my favorite example. She worked for not quite two years back in the late 1970's in a job that was covered by FICA taxes (for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, as it was called then, as a temporary employee oddly subject to FICA) and ever since 1981, she's been dragging down a Social Security Disability check (not SSI!) for a condition she was born with.

We split up soon thereafter.

[rhett o rick]

154. That statement along with a number of others seem consistant with

right-wing talking points. Just sayin.

[Doremus]

124. The time for continued denial of the solvency of SS is long past over.

RW spew isn't any truer coming from a Dem mouth than straight from the vermin's mouth.

[customerserviceguy]

132. I get my views from the writings of Dr. Allen W. Smith

Read this article to see if you think he's a right winger:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/01/tax-the-rich-to-repay-looted-social-security-money/

Then, do yourself a favor and find his other writings, he's about telling the truth from a progressive point of view, without pretendind that Social Security is going to be there forever.

Here's a little something to get you started:

http://www.fedsmith.com/2011/10/14/looting-social-security-socalled-trust-fund/

[Babel_17]

134. May I ask?

Boomer SS contributions represent deferred gratification, yes? Instead of spending it on themselves, the money helped keep other taxes low and helped spur the US economic juggernaut. Money from the boomers also went into the US infrastructure, didn't it?

How are SS notes different than all the other Treasury Securities? Our government issues them and thus can spend more and tax less. That money goes into the same budget as SS contributions.

Doesn't it all boil down to the full faith and credit of the US government?

Default on Treasury Securities and there's a world wide catastrophe for all economies.

Default on the retirements of millions of Americans, well, wouldn't the politicians involved deserve what they got?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Treasury_security

It's the will of the people that Congress needs to honor the long understood commitment to SS funded retirement benefits. The brightest economists we have, who also have the best track records, say that it is eminently doable to provide for that.

Don't all discussions properly follow from that?

[customerserviceguy]

143. Sorry it took me a few days

but I do have some answers to your questions.

Boomer SS contributions do NOT represent deferred gratification. When I stick money in my 401K (presuming Vanguard doesn't go up in flames, like Madoff Investments did), that's deferred gratification. When I stick a pricey bottle of wine away in my tiny 'cellar' under the last row of stairs in our one-bedroom townhouse to age for several years before drinking it, that's delayed gratification. When my FICA taxes went straight into the Social Security checks of their recipients for the last forty years, that's not delayed gratification. One cannot save a bottle of wine and drink that bottle at the same time.

Also, the idea of delayed gratification involves a person weighing their choices. FICA tax wasn't a choice.

How do you get that FICA taxes 'helped keep other taxes low'? Being as the money that is taxed as FICA taxes is ALSO taxed with income taxes (double taxation if ever I've seen it) that doesn't make sense. And yes, money from boomers' taxes of all kinds did build infrastructure, but what's that got to do with your argument?

Social Security gets specialized Treasury securities, that are not tradeable on the open market. If I have a T-bill with an interest rate paying say, 3%, I would be able to sell it at a profit over face value if interest rates drop to 1%, or I would have to take a loss on face value if rates went to 5%. While it wouldn't be fun to take a loss, at least I could sell that T-bill to a willing buyer for a market price, and get most of my money back if I so desired. The Social Security notes can only be redeemed at the will of Congress. I think that's one of the reasons Bernie Sanders himself referred to them as IOU's, which are not terribly negotiable.

Yes, the full faith and credit of the Federal Government is supposedly all behind this, but what happens when the investing class starts to lose that faith? At one point, they all believed that the fairy-dust securities that led to the economic collapse of 2008 were worth something, too. Investors are remarkably irrationally exuberant about things one day, and sour as hell on them the next. That's how bubbles are created and then burst.

You seem to think that some mechanism is in place to "punish" politicians who fail to keep the Social Security checks flowing. I don't see what that mechanism is. Most who borrowed from the excess of FICA taxes over Social Security benefits checks for decades are long gone out of Congress, and many are dead. We can, I suppose, kick out the rest of them, but then we'd be left with a Congress that didn't create the problem, yet still have to deal with it.

Tossing Bernie Madoff in the slammer didn't repay his investors one dime beyond the pittance that they had to pay lawyers to scrap over from the fire sale of all of his worldly possessions. He didn't just take the money, he manufactured an illusion of its very existence. I could contract with you to provide you a unicorn for $10,000 and you might be able to recover some of that money from me in a lawsuit, but the court is not going to compel anyone to create a unicorn for you.

You can go on and on about what is right and just, or what the duties of the politicians are to the American people, but in the end, it doesn't matter. We've been eating the seed corn, and just because our bellies have been full so far doesn't mean that we aren't screwed when it comes to planting season. The only thing that can possibly help is to enact comprehensive reforms which raise taxes (on everybody, not just the rich) and cut discretionary spending. Also, we have to figure out how to stop being the world's policeman and nation-builder for people who can't wait till we're gone to blow up everything we've built for them.

It will take some changes to entitlement program benefits to keep them going, as well. It's a multi-pronged approach that will need a true grand bargain, some sort of well-thought out piecing together of various parts to be able to stop shoving the burden on future generations. What we're doing now is the exact opposite of deferred gratification.

[Babel_17]

146. Thanks for the reply, and the food for thought.

I think a lot of this boil down to what is the worth of what people have contributed to SS. I'm willing to agree to disagree on that.

One other thing that I think gets missed in these discussions. The amount of money in the SS system is actually secondary to the overall wealth and health of the nation.

If they looked under the cushions and found trillions of dollars it wouldn't change the fact that goods and services are being provided by several generations for the retired one.

Yes, there is lots of wiggle room in how that can work but it all comes down to what is needed and what can be provided.

Imo, no eating of seed corn is needed.

Perhaps we share common ground in that we both think it comes down to "scarcity"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity

[customerserviceguy]

148. You're welcome

I appreciate the civility you've shown, I don't get that a lot around here when I share my fears about Social Security here. It's much easier to ignore things, or think that some kind of 'karma' is going to make everything right by punishing the guilty, rewarding the virtuous, and sparing the innocent. I gave up all religion, including fuzzy thinking about how unseen forces somehow will make things 'fair'.

As you can see, I don't view the FICA taxes paid by people to have been any sort of investment. All they did was make it possible for the generations to live apart in separate homes, rather than in the same home, as was done by working people before Social Security. My parents' taxes paid to give my grandparents some comfort in their old age, mine went to them, and I'm afraid that my children and grandchildren's generations won't be so happy about keeping this going, especially when there are so many of us, and so few of them, most of them making less money (inflation factored in) than the baby boomers.

We can make this easier for future generations by taking steps now. How much more devestating will it be for the Social Security Administration to suddenly cut benefits by 30% in the 2030's, rather than to have a chained-CPI COLA now? I have other ideas, as well that I've put up here, that have been pooh-poohed. For instance, if we raise the wage base on employee contributions modestly (say to $150K, then raise that by inflation every year, just like we do with tax brackets) it would cause only a modest raise in the maximum Social Security benefit. However, we could make the sky the limit on the employer's share. If a big bank wants to pay ten million bucks to a CEO to run the place into the ground, shouldn't they pay FICA tax on the whole ten million? It doesn't create an 'infinte' maximum benefit for the CEO when he's washed up and retired, but it does raise money by those who think they've got a lot of it to burn.

We are a wealthy nation. That's one of many reasons why so many wish to come here, even risking their lives in the process. However, we cannot suppose that the 1945-2000 prosperity was the norm. It was provided by an oil boom that went bust about 1970. At about that time, the concept of the COLA was added to Social Security. It took only about a decade and a relatively mild recession (compared to the present one) to cause Congress to see where that was leading, and we got the 1983 reforms that made sure the system would cut back on payments and raise more in taxes. Had that money been truly invested in fully negotiable securities, it might have grown to an impressive sum. But it's too late to turn back the clock to make that happen.

Look into Dr. Allen W. Smith. He's not a Heritage Foundation whack job, or any kind of right wing propagandist. The reason you probably have NOT heard about him is that the Republicans despise him. However, he does not sugarcoat the future, he's going to tell you the ugly truth about all of this, and why politicians from both sides will eventually have to deal with the realities that are in place right now that need to be fixed.

We can shape that debate with our notions of fairness and justice, or we can wait until the GOP swings back into power in a future election.

[Babel_17]

155. I agree with some of what you are saying

There was indeed a boom/bubble of the ratio of workers to retirees that won't be happening again, barring any highly unlikely scenario. I agree there are implications to that which should be dealt with in a timely and mature fashion.

But I think perspective is valuable in these discussions. And imo there is validity to the viewpoint that we can, after relatively easy tweaks to the systems, provide most future retirees with checks that will help them to afford the necessities of life which a modern and wealthy society is capable of producing in abundance. Sure, more than just a SS check is going to be needed by many. Other sources of income have always been part of it.

A modest apartment, inexpensive food, and electronic gadgets, provided to a senior citizen doesn't have to have a negative impact on the net wealth of the younger generations; not if our economy is put in better order.

There is no real limiting factor to that kind of sharing in the economic prosperity of our nation.

This is not to say the younger generation is there to provide for, and wait on, the retired one. No, future retired generations need to have realistic ambitions.

I guess I've basically set out my opinion. I suppose we'll "see" each other in other threads. Thanks for the thoughtful reply!

[customerserviceguy]

157. Again, my thanks

for your understanding. I, too, hope that prosperity for all is what makes the whole thing work. If younger workers can earn decent wages, maybe one or one and a half percentage point of a raise in the FICA rate won't hurt so bad. Chained CPI is a very gradual reduction over a long period of time in a Social Security benefit, and only becomes significant if there is high inflation during one's retirement years. If inflation were as virtually wiped out as it has been over the past few years (of course, I'm comparing with the 1960's and 1970's) then there will not be much of an impact.

It will take some tweaks by all parts of society to get our economic house back in order. If we fail to do so, I guarantee you that the wealthy will suffer the least.

[reteachinwi]

159. SS increases masked budget deficits created by corporate and individual income tax cuts.

How do you get that FICA taxes 'helped keep other taxes low'?

Income taxes went the other way. The personal income tax slipped from 7.8 percent of the economy to 7.3 percent, with most of the decline enjoyed by people in the top 1 percent of incomes. The big drop was in the corporate income tax, which fell from 4 percent of the economy to 1.2 percent. Notice that the corporate income tax fell by 2.8 percentage points, an amount almost entirely offset by a 2.4 percentage point increase in Social Security taxes.

The effect has been to ease the taxes of the wealthy, while burdening the vast majority of workers. Considering how highly ownership of stocks is concentrated, the benefit of those lower corporate taxes went overwhelmingly to the top 1 percent and, especially, the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. Considering that the Social Security tax is capped, most of the burden of the increased payroll tax went to the bottom 90 percent.
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/05/04/social-security-is-not-going-broke/

I'm glad I didn't hire you to prepare my tax return. Do you know tax law?

[customerserviceguy]

160. Your bolded paragraphs are indeed true

It's just that there is no cause-and-effect relationship that I see. In fact, FICA taxes were raised a few times when income taxes were not, such as in the Carter years.

I suppose you could make the claim that by stealing from the Trust Fund, that could mask part of the deficit caused by lowering income tax rates. But that's just Rethug politicians seizing an opportunity, and is not a direct result of raising both the FICA tax rate and the wage base on which it is calculated on. One did not follow directly as an unavoidable consequence of the other.

As for tax law, I don't do income taxes any more (in the age of Turbo Tax, it surprises me that H & R Blockhead still has anybody going there, other than for the quickie refund loans) but thirty years ago I was an enrolled agent.

[socialist_n_TN]

64. Yeah, not many people remember that. Or at least don't bring it up........

nm

[Sherman A1]

91. Precisely

We have indeed and frankly I think we should collect the money we paid in when it's time for our retirements.

[INdemo]

95. So we elect a guy that we feel confident with that

he wont allow cuts to SS...he did say that during his campaign...Then we are suppose to keep quiet after he puts Social Security and Medicare on the table for budget cuts..The only way SS and Medicare ties in with the budget is the fact that (through Republican leadership) 2.7 trillion dollars was stolen from Soc.Security for budget expenditures and never paid back..Now that heisting of Soc. Security included Democrats too...So now we have a Wall Street corporatist as the Treas. Sec. And as it turns out a corporatist as President;but didn't we kinda know that from his first team..We just wanted to believe he would fight for our interests in his second term...but he's owned just like all the others by corpora tate and Wall St. dollars.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

103. In 2010 there was a shortfall of $40 billion....

due to the high unemployment and the ever diminishing wages...the difference had to be made up out of the general treasury. We have been so royally screwed over, we may never recover.

[Yo_Mama]

135. The deduction is not going to be enough to pay for the benefits paid out

There are also taxes on benefits, but those won't make up the gap.

SS payroll taxes (even if they had been at the full amount) have been short for a few years - benefits paid out are already more than taxes paid in.

So that's basically the problem.

The second part of the issue is the trust fund(s) - those are records of excess deductions paid in by workers since 1983 that were supposed to "prefund" this period when the boomers would be retiring and payroll taxes wouldn't cover their benefits. There are two problems here - one is that there is no actual money in the trust fund. The excess deductions were given to the general fund and special Treasury Obligations were issued. This means that now as we run deficits, the general fund must make up the difference between income and outgo in the SS/DI programs, from other tax revenues. Since we don't have enough tax revenues, money is borrowed and public debt increases.

Even if we had money in the trust fund(s), the trust funds are set to be exhausted by sometime in the 2030s, which would mean a benefit cut for the boomers.

But in fact, given our current high deficits, the problem will occur earlier when we can no longer borrow to fund SS benefit payments.

So we must either raise taxes to pay for the program, or we must cut benefits. We're set to have a 100% debt to GDP ratio sometime in the 2020s, and that's when TSHTF.

[marions ghost]

4. yep

and the "squeeze" generation are looking after both elders and kids as best they can in this depression.

[JDPriestly]

68. And paying back student loans.

Meanwhile, the bankers feast on the Social Security Trust Fund like a bunch of horseflies.

[llmart]

5. I said years ago.....

the us baby boomers would get screwed five ways to Sunday and we already have been. If we want to be truly honest about it, the so-called "Greatest Generation" (I have hated that term since stupid Brokenjaw invented it) screwed us over. They had everything thrown at them by our government after WWII, but what did our generation get? All we ever hear is how we are such a large generation that we just can't afford to give you what you already earned.

Just for clarification, my personal definition of baby boomer is not what is generally considered the baby boom generation which has been defined by demographers as those born between 1946 and 1964. I think the real baby boomers are those born between 1946 and 1956. The term baby boomer came into being to describe those babies that were born right after WWII ended and the soldiers came home and started families.

[jeff47]

16. You got what you voted for.

Or more precisely, what your generation voted for.

Reagan and company told a story of massive, unending prosperity for all if we just did what they said. And enough people bought it to shift our country's politics drastically to the right. Boomers overwhelmingly voted for Reagan in both elections, for example.

Or at least the ones who bothered to show up at the polls. A lot of boomers "tuned out" and didn't bother to vote, because "it's all corrupt, man!". As a result, there wasn't enough pull from the left to keep the country from lurching right.

[msongs]

25. seems like reagan was not reelected in 2012. nice try though nt

[jeff47]

31. Because history started in 2012.

Raising the eligibility age happened in 2012, not during Reagan's term.

And the Reagan revolution didn't have lasting effects that drove the country far to the right.

Nope, all we need to think about is the last 6 months. Nothing older than that could possibly matter in politics.

[charlyvi]

45. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Raising the eligibility age was passed by P.L. 98-21, Social Security Amendments of 1983, signed on April 20, 1983.

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/1983amend.html

Raises the age of eligibility for unreduced retirement benefits in two stages to 67 by the year 2027. Workers born in 1938 will be the first group affected by the gradual increase. Benefits will still be available at age 62, but with greater reduction.


Ronald Reagan was President in 1983.

[jeff47]

46. That was a sarcastic response.

The poster I was replying to seemed to want to dodge history by only talking about 2012. So I responded with sarcasm.

[charlyvi]

48. OK. Thanks

Sorry.

[mountain grammy]

108. Don't be sorry, we need to be constantly reminded.

[llmart]

54. Um....

I DID NOT vote for Reagan. In fact, my first Presidential vote was for Mondale and I have never voted for a Republican in my life, thank you very much. However, I did know several "Greatest Generation" people who were Democrats and THEY voted for Reagan. That's just my personal, anecdotal information.

[jeff47]

70. Whether or not you did, boomers did.

"Greatest Generation" voted for Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon and Carter. To blame them for Reagan requires that an utterly massive number of them suddenly decided to vote for Reagan. That didn't happen.

I'm not making up some inter-generational bullshit. Exit polls showed that Reagan was extremely popular among boomers who voted. However, turnout among boomers was much lower than previous generations.

[Fumesucker]

57. There are some strong demographic trends politically that don't really line up like that

Who was president when you came of age is evidently more important to your voting than what "generation" you come from.

http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/section-1-how-generations-have-changed/

[jeff47]

71. Yes, but we lump people into "generations" as a very rough approximation

After all, they came of age about the same time, and would fall roughly into the same presidential cohort.

But as with any rough approximation, it's not nearly as accurate as fine-grained measurements.

[maddiemom]

100. Point well taken. The baby boom era was really ended by the mid to late fifties,

and those born in 1945 could technically be included in the beginning. These are just arbitrary figures since, by 1964, with the earlier marriages and earlier starting of families at the time, the first baby boomers were near to starting their own families in a lot of cases. Why quibble? I have always thought the baby boom years were fairly fluid, but certainly over by 1960, but apparently a continuing higher birth rate into the sixties resulted in the 1946-1964 thing.

[malokvale77]

6. I've said it many times...

they stole from the fund to pay for tax cuts and now they don't want to pay it back.

[truedelphi]

7. I say it also, and then the apologists for whatever party is in

Power tell me I am delusional.

But how come we so rarely hear on TV that the Fund is its own Special Fund, and has a 2.1 trillion dollar surplus! Who is it gives the Blue Dawg Dems their nifty little pie charts, showing erroneously that Social Security comes out of the Federal Government's General Fund? (It may in fact come from that arena, but if so, only because the Feds administer the benefits - not because they are using Federal Tax Dollars to pay it.)

[malokvale77]

17. Remember when...

Al Gore wanted to put it in a locked box? If only people had listened.

[thucythucy]

102. I remember Republicans and pundits in general

ridiculed Gore for using the phrase so many times! I also remember Bush dismissing Gore's predictions that GOP tax cuts for the wealthy would lead to deficits as "fuzzy math." Turns out the fuzzy math was all in the heads of Republicans.

None of this debate would be happening if Gore had been allowed to take office as he deserved. Instead, jerks like Greenspan would still be telling us how "dangerous" it is to our "freedom" to have a federal government that isn't beholden to the banksters, that is, runs up surpluses and is paying down the national debt.

If anyone in history is entitled to say "I told you so"--and on so many different issues--it's Al Gore.

[Demo_Chris]

9. Here's another and better reason

The whole idea behind chained CPI is that they believe seniors will go along with it because their personal benefits will be largely unchanged, and the real damage will fall on their kids and grandkids. Sadly, based on track record, this is probably a safe bet. Current recipients will be mostly fine, on paper at least, but the program will be GONE for their kids and grandkids.

So my question to seniors is this...

What makes you think your kids and grandkids will continue paying in for a program they will never receive?

If seniors go along with stealing their kids and grandkids social security -- and that's what this is -- then heaven help those seniors. You better pray you banked lots of money before shipping your kids jobs overseas, because I suspect you are gonna need it.

Social Security will be privatized so quick it will make your head spin. After all, chained CPI is a guarantee that future retirees get nothing, privatized they at least have a chance (however slim). And that means that after chained-CPI current recipients will be on budget, under the scalpel, and with no one left who really cares.

[Skittles]

19. you think like a repuke

it's not the 1% fucking us over - it's SENIORS

[Demo_Chris]

23. No, but that is exactly how the GOP will play it

Do you doubt this?

In any case, I offered what I believe is a very good reason for seniors to be concerned. It's okay if you disagree with my conclusions. I do, however, take issue with your insult. I don't think like a republican, I just think.

[Skittles]

24. of course the fucking GOP will play it that way

does NOT mean WE (and I use that term VERY LOOSELY) have to think that way

[Demo_Chris]

37. So we agree: The GOP will play it that way

In my opinion:

If you are a current recipient who believes this won't impact you as much as the next couple generations, I believe you will be in for a rude surprise once this goes through. The GOP WILL use the numbers from this to justify privitization -- that being the real goal here. Wall Street wants that money going to them rather than into some trust fund.

And when that happens, the money going out to current recipients will need to be seperated from the funds current workers are paying into the privitized social security accounts. Which means NO ONE will have any incentive to care about that side of the obsolete program.

That's how I see it. And it sounds like you agree.

[John2]

115. Well I'm going to do some opposite

thinking here, because I disagree with every thing you said. Seniors should only worry about the last days of living because they earned it. Not everybody lived that long to see retirement age at 65. Some payed into Social Security ever since their teens and early twenties, whenever they were able to get a job and support themselves and their kids. Those seniors that you are talking about are the reason many of the Me Generation exist.

Generation X was the me Generation of the Reagan Era, when it became alright to neglect the Poor and Nuclear War became acceptable by a President of the United States. You see that attitude now in the House of Representatives and occassionally even President Obama showing some Adulation for Ronald Reagan. I was in the military then and that was the exact time Reagan and this me Generation even had the audacity to start reneging on the promises made to our Vietnam veterans. It was also the beginning of gang warfare in our cities between young people. Money and wealth was the center of their Universe. They would sell out anybody including their own kin, because materialism was God to them. They worshipped it.

The bottomline is money is not the judge of success. I grew up as a kid watching shows with scrooge like characters. A person can measure their success by how many people's lives they changed and how many friends they have when all is said and done. A lot of people in Generation X has gotten wealthy also. When will the Greed stop?

I think Romney is wrong. I think the people that have made a lot of profits are wrong. I think this country has done well by them and without the opportunitities this great country provided for them to succeed, they would not be where they are today. They should do their share and give back to this country. The burden should not be on their parents or seniors. We just have different values.

[Demo_Chris]

119. Gen X didn't elect Reagan

The median Gen X'er was ten years old when Reagan first took office. Only the oldest Gen X'ers could vote at all.

Reagan and the ME generation you speak of was Boomers.

[love_katz]

153. Boomers didn't necessarily elect Raygun, either.

I bet I have plenty of company who didn't vote for that piece of shit!

I wasn't fooled by him, nor either of the Bushes.

I have NEVER voted for any republican!

[truedelphi]

26. i am sorry that you are a victim of the war between the generations

One that has been created by our beloved Fourth Estate.

The fact is - One) That chart that is bandied about, showing how the Social Security payments amount to some 24% of the government's total spending each year is FALSE. The Social Security funds are in their own special fund, and currently that fund has a 2.1 trillion dollar surplus. Two) The Fund itself would be in trouble, sometime after the year 2030. Since it is also predicted that we will have a pandemic that wipes us all out by then, I think it would be wise to wait until 2025 to start worrying. People who are wiser than me say that there is a way that we could straighten this out IMMEDIATELY: raise the rates on people making over $ 115,000 a year. This is more than fair - believe me, the better off you are, the more likely you will live to see your share of the earnings.

[Demo_Chris]

38. I agree, we could raise or eliminate the cap and solve in indefinately

But the POINT is to destroy the current program. There's a lot of money there and Wall Street wants to play with it.

[ThomThom]

60. so true so true

they don't care about the promise that was made to 15 year old's .... of course we we not allowed to opt out

[xtraxritical]

75. Business considers their half of the withholding "just another unjust tax".

Because they can buy all the Congress critters they need, we're screwed.

[mountain grammy]

109. You hit it! It all comes down to corps paying their half. Now that most pensions are

out of the way, the next target is the half of the payroll tax the employers pay, and it's been the target. If workers paid the entire amount, there would be no problem, and they do, when they are self employed. Hence, let's just pay everyone like private contractors.. sound familiar?

[xtraxritical]

120. Let's just raise the cap on the SOBs.

[mountain grammy]

121. Yes, yes, yes!

[Duval]

53. Thank you, truedelphi! n/t

[djean111]

33. You honestly believe anyone in Washington gives a shit about seniors? They don't.

[Demo_Chris]

40. I agree

[SoCalDem]

34. No generation is "stealing" from their descendants

Generational "pacts" are the way societies act when they are civilized..

Do parents slap a lunch check down on the table when their kids eat soup & sandwiches at noon?

Do parents make their small kids "earn their keep"?

We OWE each other..It's just that simple..

If we are decent caring humans, we can either pay money so our elders can care for themselves, or we will have the older ones sleeping down the hall from us in our homes..

or maybe you would drop them off near a busy freeway and hope someone hits them? (not many ice floes these days)

[Demo_Chris]

42. I believe that every generation is entrusted to guard this earth and society for the future

I believe that all of us owe an obligation to each other, and that this obligation is what makes a group of people a society rather than a gathering of sociopaths.

It is left to future generations to render the final verdict as to how well previous generations delivered on this trust.

[maddiemom]

101. Exactly right and very well put! "We OWE each ...it's just that simple...

I could never have put it better.

[JDPriestly]

69. Why will many kids continue to pay in?

Maybe because the alternative under the law of many states is that they fully support their parents.

But more likely because kids want to see their parents safe, healthy and doing well just as parents want to see their kids and grandkids safe, healthy and doing well and want to be able to leave a little something to their children and grandchildren when they die even if it is very small. That used to be possible. If the Republicans and the Obama administration and the bankers have their way, it will no longer be possible.

[Demo_Chris]

73. I guess I have done a poor job explaining this

I apologize for that. I am sick as a dog and having a hard time concentrating. I will be brief.

I suspect that the main goal of all this is to allow Wall Street to get their hands on this money. Once the money is no longer going into the trust fund, and instead into some kind of privitized system, the money paid to current SS recipients becomes both practically and emotionally decoupled from the contributions of current workers.

No one would sell this as a plan to stick it to seniors. That would be insane. But some would understand, and I suggest that they will not care -- any more than current seniors cared about the impact of the NAFTA on their kids and grandkids. And when it comes to chained CPI, even here on DU most people are focussing on the struggles of current recipients while completely dismissing what this erosion will mean two or three or four decades down the road.

[JDPriestly]

86. What happens two or three or four decades down the road

has nothing to do with the Social Security benefits paid out now.

Future benefits will depend on whether we can maintain full employment at good wages and replenish the Social Security system with the payroll taxes from the wages of future workers. The Social Security Trust Fund mostly belongs to the current retirees and the baby boomer retirees. Those are the people, the big demographic bulge that created that Social Security Trust Fund by paying higher payroll taxes beginning about 1985 than their parents had paid. The Social Security Trust Fund is intended to insure good benefits for the demographic baby boomer bump. It should not be needed for future generations because the ratio of working younger people paying ordinary payroll taxes to the number of retirees will become more balanced once the baby boomers are no longer living and drawing benefits.

Once the baby boomer generation has died, the Social Security benefits of their children will depend on how our economy is doing and how well working people are paid.

If people are worried about whether the Social Security Trust Fund is big enough to cover the needs of the baby boomers, they should simply raise the cap on the incomes on which the payroll tax is imposed.

Remember, baby boomers paid enough payroll taxes to keep their parents and grandparents in style with generous pensions and Social Security on top of it. Interest rates were quite high in the 1980s and and not so low in the 1990s. They are almost nothing now. You are practically paying the bank to keep your money safe and earning nothing from your retirement savings if you keep them in the investments that are recommended for seniors.

The post-baby-boomer generation will not have a problem provided that our economy is good.

I agree that NAFTA and our other trade agreements are much greater threats to our economy and to the earnings, stability and Social Security benefits of the post-Baby-Boomer generations. We need to change our trade agreements. They are really hurting us and threatening our sovereignty far more than are the terrorists.

[Demo_Chris]

89. I agree. The point was that time matters when you apply chained CPI to it n/t

[99Forever]

10. President Obama offered it, so it...

... must be good. He is a Democrat, you know.

[AnnieK401]

11. No worries, according to a recent article in the Washington Post

by Ezra Klein, the Republicans don't even know Obama is offering chained CPI anyway. And when told they don't care.

[Pakid]

13. The only way to stop it

is to make our elected official lives a living hell everywhere they go they need to see our smiling faces and be told what we think of them give them no rest until they decided that no matter how much money the rich give them to screw us over that it is not worth it.

[truedelphi]

20. My Blue Dawg Congressman, Mike Thompson, (Lake County Calif.) is absolutely gleeful

Over his Blue-dawgedness.

And every time he goes anywhere, he has that abysmal chart of how the Social Security payments come from our government's operating fund. Activists have tried and tried and tried and tried to tell him, until blue in the face, though not in the dog, that the Social Security payments come out of their own fund, but he is not about to hear us.

Whenever I see that damn chart I want to strangle something.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. They're telling the boomers they have to sacrifice for their kids....

Otherwise Social Security won't be there for them.

As for the young, they've become convinced it wont be there for them already.

They also believe in vampires and zombies.

[truedelphi]

18. Does anyone anywhere know the amount of huge contributions the Social Security

Payments are offering up to the local economy??!

I run a small publishing firm. Almost all of our income is derived from people who are on pensions or on Social Security, except for those customers from overseas. I think the direct losses to the local economy will be staggering! Also many on Social Security help out their kids, who are no longer working, or else they help a grand kid or two with college tuition, etc.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

43. That doesn't matter.

The Republicans consider the very IDEA of having taxes on the rich raised to be EVIL.

[RebelOne]

50. How can we who are on Social Security help out their kids

or grand kids? I am on Social Security and after Medicare deductions, I only clear $1378 per month, which is just enough to cover my expenses. My kids are going to have to help me out soon.

[truedelphi]

174. Soem peopel have the good fortune of being double dippers -

For instance, if you were a military wife; your husband dies in the service. You end up with his pension. But you work to supplement that pension. Then at retirement, you now have his pension and yours.

Most people are in our shoes, but others have a bit more help. A friend of mine who has her husband's Navy pension, also has his medical insurance as well, I believe. So that there is help on several fronts; not just Social Security and MediCare.

[Demo_Chris]

28. You have this backwards

They are telling boomers that their kids will gladly sacrifice for them. The cuts add up over time, like compound interest. So a current recipient will start off getting his full check, and in a couple decades when he dies it will be less. The person retiring twenty years from now starts at that new reduced amount and watches his checks erode as well.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

41. Most people don't even know how the program works....

If they did you wouldn't hear people talking about the government holding their money.

[Demo_Chris]

44. Good point

[KansDem]

21. Kay & Ray!

[truedelphi]

27. Thanks Kansas Dem. n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

22. Theft

[truedelphi]

30. Exactly! n/t

[msongs]

29. If only we had a president and congress that supported SS. better luck next year eh? nt

[Zen Democrat]

36. My Republican uncle told my dad that SS wouldn't be there for him. In the 1950s!

My dad is now 93 and has been drawing SS since he was 62.

I don't believe these scare tactics. My boss is for privatizing because he says SS won't be around for his kids and it's not fair. Same thing my uncle told my dad 55 years ago.

SS will last as long as the American people demand it. And they have demanded it. Just ask George Bush, Jr. how privatization worked for him in 2005.

[raccoon]

122. In 1975, my boss said SS wouldn't be worth a damn when we turned 65. She is now 67

and drawing SS.


So, yes, these scare tactics have been around for a long time.

[JDPriestly]

47. K&R. Well said.

[wryter2000]

52. I lost a year

Born in 1948, I have to wait until I'm 66. At my age. that's going to be a long year.

[Louisiana1976]

55. Well said. K&R

[Blue_In_AK]

56. I'm 66

and I see people my age and younger in the obituaries every single day.

[spanone]

59. k&r...

[truebluegreen]

61. We are also the only generation to pay DOUBLE:

we paid / are paying for the current retirees AND for our own retirement, thanks to the last Grand Bargain.

Ain't it GRAND?

[socialist_n_TN]

65. As I said in a post upthread.........

not many people bring this little point up during these discussions. In this thread, only three posters have mentioned this fact, you, me and another upthread out of 60+ posts.

[truebluegreen]

104. We should be raising the roof with it,

and shouting from the rooftops. Banging away at our congresscritters, the administration, LTTEs, everything

[Milliesmom]

72. It's called stealing

They have had their hands in Social Security, just like they are or have taken all the money from the United States Post Office. The people that retire down the road are in for a shock.

[David Zephyr]

76. K&R! Bravo!

Thank you.

[virgogal]

78. You make it sound as if the Boomers suffered more than any other generation.

You have GOT to be kidding.

They just experienced what is known as "life".

[Hoyt]

79. I think I agree.

[truedelphi]

82. In some ways, we are guilty of using up all the fun.

Jobs were plentiful although the competition for higher level jobs was intense. (People with PhD's in literature had to drive cabs due to competition.) Rents were cheap - so if you wanted to work hard thee or four days a week at some enterprise you established, you could have a long weekend every week - and still buy a condo! Gasoline waas like 34 cents for a gallon.

But the younger people don't get how the culture was forever altered. (You younger whippersnippers!) I am reminded of this guy who
worked up the street from where I worked, about ten years ago. My girlfriend and I went in to pick up the printing his company was doing. This twenty something guy overheard us talking about some concert we had seen, decades earlier, and the event must have dated us. (Certainly our looks didn't, I mean, I couldn't look my age could I? And no, don't answer the last question.)

Anyway he says to us, above the blare of the hard rock that was booming over the speakers in his part of the office, "So the thing I never forgave you Boomers for, you think you made changes... What the hell changes did you make?"

T. and I both split a gut laughing, after we got out of the place. I mean, he had tattoos over every visible inch of his body. Hair down to his waist, and earrings and other piercings. He was working for a mid-level corporation, and he didn't have the vaguest idea that back in the day, he'd have either had to be getting money from Mom and Dad, or selling weed on the street, to be dressed like that. And back in the day, the only music that a worker ever got in their mid level corporate work station was Muzak, not hard rock.

[admonish]

80. don't forget us 50 year olds

...we didn't quite fight in vietnam, but we did pay in for in my case nearly 35 years, I say if they can't pay us, there must be anarchy!

[Oilwellian]

81. I remember those tax increases

Had 3 babies and a new mortgage, and then BLAM. A 3 percent increase in our taxes. It hit hard and we grinded through it. They borrowed the surplus and now don't want to pay it back. And Demo Chris is correct above thread. The benefits for our kids and grand kids will be considerably less. They should be getting more. If the Democrats do this and Obama signs the bill, that's the ball game. Believe it.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

83. Listen to Michael Bloomberg on "entitlement" reform. It'll make you throw-up.

Last week he was on Charlie Rose with Bill Gates and Bloomberg oozed condescension. He apparently feels justified in his criticism because he is a philanthropist to his causes of choice. I wish FDR's ghost could haunt the hell out of his mansion.

[daa]

128. Spoken like a true billionaire nt

[colorado_ufo]

85. Take your Social Security early, in many cases!

The extra amount you earn by waiting until "fully qualified" will seldom make up for two, three, or four years worth of benefits lost forever. And if you - may God forbid - die before that magic "fully qualified" age, you will hopefully have received at least something.

[eridani]

88. The cuts are going to hurt succeeding generations even more

Vanishing defined benefits pensions, ability to save hit hard by crappy economy, etc.

[truedelphi]

129. Yes, I agree with you. Totally. n/t

[1983law]

90. For those of us born

in 1966-69, what are we called? BB, Gen X, dead weight ?

[Jennicut]

99. You are a Gen Xer.

You are the oldest of the Gen Xers. You can now officially call yourself a slacker. I'm a Gen Xer as well, being born in '75. I think this is the rough estimate of the birth dates for all the generations:

1927-1945 - Silent Generation
1946-1964 - Baby Boomers
1965-1983 - Gen X or the Busters
1984- 2002 - Gen Y or the Millennials
2003- Current Gen Z or the Digital Generation

[Romulox]

98. Let's remove the income cap on SS, for a start. It's not fair, and the arguments against make no

sense.

[chervilant]

105. ALL OF US

should be furious! When are the masses going to stop whingeing online and start descending on DC to STOP this hedonistic insanity?!?

It's like we're standing right behind a line in the sand, watching the corporate megalomaniacs wield their sticks. They tell us we're about to step on their line, and we apologize and back up! Then, they draw a new line in the sand. Are they going to back us into a corner before we fight for our rights?!?

[truedelphi]

127. We are unfortunately, very divided as a nation.

The "R" and "D" designation is not clear cut any more as to what someone's individual stance is on any issue.

A friend of mine was very supportive of Obama's DOJ going after a group of 35 low income households in Santa Rosa Calif., back on Sept 27th 2012. No warrants were issued, except for the very first household! The police then decided since on e person was growing in their backyard, more people could be growing the stuff, so they went in to home after home after home. People handcuffed and left sitting on the curb, the kids and babies crying.

My friend has supported Med marijuana legalization, but he refused to get mad at Obama. "These people are probably Mexican illegals" he said with a smirk. I was very disgusted to find out how racist, and class-fixated his views were, as he had accused me of being racist for not supporting Obama in all of his many activities that I view as illegal and immoral (The drone attacks on third world people, his response to BP, his support of the NDAA etc.)

My RW Christian-fanatic neighbor was very upset about the same activity - she does social work and can think of no reason at all to justify all these kids being put into foster care, the families sure to be facing huge debts to handle court costs etc.

[WilliamPitt]

106. What % of DC lawmakers are Boomers?

Legit question, I don't know.

[WinkyDink]

117. I think that question ought to be: "What % of the Boomers in DC are IN the 1%?"

[CountAllVotes]

107. cancer has taken its toll

You nailed it.

The big FEAR that boomers will drain the SS fund it total b.s. IMO.

My best friend died of cancer at the age of 34.

My brother died of cancer at the age of 42.

I had a set of 4 cousins, all brothers, all dead in their late 40s and early 50s; 3 of cancer one had a stroke I think (not sure and did not ask!).

Another good friend just died of cancer at the age of 61 at the end of January.

None of the above people collected a cent from SS and all of them paid into it for years.

You got one very sick generation of people is what you have and the big worry that we'll live a long time is a farce as all of us were heavily exposed to many highly toxic chemicals as children and young adults. There were no environmental laws in the 1950s and the 1960s when the oh so feared "boomers" were growing up.

for the boomers!

[mountain grammy]

112. and diabetes and heart disease..

[WinkyDink]

116. My cousin just died of cancer, aged 60.

[madville]

126. I think they want cuts now in order to mask

The fact that paying back the few trillion they have spent out of the trust fund is going to be a difficult task, if they can get it back to a surplus every year the treasury won't be pressed to pay the money back.

[Cleita]

151. I'm an exbookkeeper.

I see it as working this way. The SS trust fund has 2.6 trillion in assets invested in US Treasury Bonds. The US Treasury has a liability in debt of 2.6 trillion owed to the SS fund. Why are the Repubs trying to make Americans believe that the SS fund has the debt? The solution of course is to start taxing those billionaires who are robbing our country blind to pay down the US Treasury debt. We also need to start putting people to work at living wage jobs so we can collect more FICA to help with the future of Social Security and to increase the COLA seniors have been cheated out of the past years.

[Cleita]

140. There is a BIG LIE being told here and it's being told over and over again so people

are starting to believe it. The lie is that Social Security is responsible for the debt. This is a huge fabrication and a blatant lie. Social Security has 2.6 trillion in the fund and is solvent to somewhere around 2030 and even then if nothing is done to correct this, it still can pay the majority of benefits due seniors. The debt is the result of George W. Bush pissing away the surplus Bill Clinton left him and then engaging us in two wars of aggression and no intelligent oversight. Considering that the main protagonists in this adventure, the Bushes, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the whole PNAC board members are all multi-millionaires and billionaires, I suggest we try them for war crimes. Their punishment would be to turn over their fortunes to pay off this debt that is actually theirs not ours. Oh, yes, I would let them keep their Social Security and Medicare, but no more. Let them try to live on it like the rest of us.

[customerserviceguy]

144. Social Security may not be responsible for the debt

but it is rapidly becoming a part of it. When the Great Recession started a few years ago, the amount of FICA taxes paid in finally dropped below the amount that was paid out under Social Security benefit programs. That has continued for the last few years, and with the baby boomers starting to hit the system a couple of years ago (the leading edge, born in 1946 turned 65 in 2011), we'll see a nearly twenty year wave of continued boomers all looking for their checks. I don't see FICA being greater than benefits again for a long, long time.

Finally, the Federal Government managed to pay some interest payments to the Trust Fund, but until we run budget surpluses, those interest payments are partly financed by borrowing. And the interest rates our government pays today are nothing compared to what has been paid historically. Financing the interest for the Trust Fund, and redeeming securities out of it is going to take either budget surpluses, further borrowing, or inflating the currency. There's simply no other ways.

The ugly truth is that Congress kept financing spending out of those FICA surpluses, and with them being gone, the jig is up. Now is the time when entitlement spending is going to dwarf everything else in the budget, yes, even military spending. I, too wish we did not get involved in ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I'm perfectly fine with hunting down AQ with drones.

We're at the end of the game. I know 2-3 trillion dollars sounds like a lot of money to you, but when you consider the tens of millions of retirees we're going to have, all getting many thousands of dollars per year in Social Security checks, that doesn't look like too much money. The size of that generation is nearly 80 million people, doing the math shows that's only $32,500 per person. Since life expectancy at 65 is about twenty years, that works out to only $1,625 a year for those folks. Do you see the problem?

[Cleita]

145. There is still $2.6 trillion in the fund.

Not debt, but assets. Social Security hasn't borrowed a dime to pay it's obligations. If the Treasury dept. can't meet its obligation to redeem the Treasury bond debt owed to the Social Security fund, then they must raise taxes on the wealthy or borrow some more money. It has nothing to do with the solvency of the Social Security fund. Please don't bring Heritage Foundation bull pucky here.

[customerserviceguy]

147. Again, did you see the math?

That $2.6 trillion isn't going to go all that far, especially if we get renewed inflation. COLA's will eat it up, especially if we get the stagflation of the mid-Seventies. That's where you still have inflation, yet the economy is stagnant. Look it up to see what I'm talking about.

I never said that Social Security had directly borrowed, but money was borrowed on its behalf to enable it to continue to produce Social Security checks. Remember that payroll tax holiday that just expired? Money was transferred on the books from the general fund to the SS Trust Fund to make up for the lost FICA taxes. THAT money was borrowed in part.

I'm not against taxing the well off (and for me, that would include a lot of folks who get described by politicians as middle class), but I think you know how very, very difficult that is. It took quite a bit of manuevering for the President to get the tax increases that he got on January first of this year, and the Rethuglicans aren't going to be manipulated as easily next time. In fact, they were all too willing to let the sequester take place rather than close loopholes. No, the only way those loopholes get closed is if there is a grand bargain that lowers rates on the top tier, cuts spending, and limits entitlement spending.

Yes, we need to elect a progressive Congress, but between 2009 and the end of the lame duck session in 2010, when we had control of both houses and the White House, did we fix things then?

I get my ideas in part from Dr. Allen W. Smith, who is as progressive as anyone here, look him up. Attacking my arguments by labeling them as being from the Heritage Foundation, or as 'right wing talking points' is a poor substitute for intelligent argument.

[Cleita]

149. I'm quite familiar with the "math" of those who try to convince us our hair is on fire.

For one thing, the inflation meme is another lie. We will not have inflation in this downward spiraling economy. Actually, we will have the opposite. We need to put people to work with living wages in order to collect more FICA. That's what will save Social Security, not stealing the benefit from old people who have paid into all their lives so billionaires can make even more billions. Your Dr. Smith is full of Heritage Foundation ideas on this if that is where you are getting your ideas from. Try listening to Paul Krugman and Robert Kuttner.

This is what the Heritage Foundation says;

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/03/social-security-runs-permanent-deficits-benefit-cuts-loom/

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/02/19/simpson-bowles-redux-another-600-billion-tax-increase/

That's pretty close to what you are saying.

There's a whole website of their SS blather. Go there and knock yourself out. Your Dr. Smith is on the same page with them.

[customerserviceguy]

164. Everybody has access to the same facts

What differs is the policies they support to deal with them. Or, you always have the choice that you make, which is to ignore the facts entirely, because they don't fit in with your preconceived notions that Social Security is this horn of plenty that will never run out of goodies.

Yes, if we had a rip-roaring economy where people were able to get good jobs at union wages, we wouldn't be in such a tough shape, FICA inflows would exceed outflows again, but we're not going back there any time soon. With the ever-larger waves of baby boom retirees hitting up the Social Security system for their checks, I don't see when we'll ever get to that place again. The 2-3 trillion in the trust fund is going to disappear, inflation or not.

All the money the Fed has pumped into the economy is eventually going to catch up with us if we ever do have any real semblance of a recovery, and we'll be in stagflation at best. All that quantitative easing is just a way to export pain from the present into the future. I'm sorry you can't see that right now, but it will be here soon.

[Cleita]

165. You just won't give it up will you.

The baby boom retirees hitting the Social Security system for checks is so Heritage Foundation. It's been out there from every right wing talking head for decades and it is a BIG LIE. Give it a rest.

[customerserviceguy]

167. Yeah, that's what people say

"Heritage Foundation" "GOP talking points" "Wall Street Journal" "meme" when they don't have any factual refutations to offer. This is demographics, pure and simple, and there's no getting around that.

If you don't believe there was a baby boom, and that it's had effects on the US economy for nearly seventy years now, and will continue to have effects for the next thirty years, then there's no hope for you.

[Cleita]

169. I went to your guru's website.

He gets his information from all those aforementioned websites and every single one of them is wrong. Come over to the light. You may appreciate fighting for your rights once you get old or become disabled or some other horrible thing that you don't anticipate. These programs are there for those who can't earn money anymore at a job. People paid into them all their lives and they deserve to get what they were promised. Also, Reagan increased the amount paid into FICA in order to cover the baby boomers and the money is there in the Trust Fund. Really, go to Bernie Sanders website. He has heaps of factual information about it there in his archives.

[truedelphi]

162. Life expectancy at 65, for this new generation, is

Not anywhere near twenty years.

Auto immune diseases,t hat Baby Boomers are experiencing and that for many of them started in their forties, are doing us in. Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's. Lou Gehrig's Disease.

And cancer for ALL age groups is going off the charts.

Even George W Bush may be some one who succumbs to Mad Cow or Alzheimer's before he's seventy. (Some of the tabloids are indicating that; although his behaviors seem to suggest it also.)

[MotherPetrie]

152. I am and I am. And if this happens, I will send a request to Obama

to return the money I spent to help get him elected, because I'll need it a hell of a lot more.

[truedelphi]

163. Good luck with that. I'd like my money back too.

However, right now, Obama is too busy doing as his Advisors suggest to give a rat's ass about the rest of us.

His idea of Middle Class is the people that associated with him and Michelle before they hit the WH (people who make between $ 350K or more a year.)

The Trans Pacific Plan is keeping him plenty busy.

http://www.angrybearblog.com/2013/03/trans-pacific-partnership-new.html

[lumberjack_jeff]

166. Raising the age to 67 is a 20% benefits cut for men. n/t

[Le Taz Hot]

168. Can I just add one more reason

we're dying off unnecessarily? Lack of health care via lack of insurance. So many of us lost our jobs and can't get hired for new ones and with the jobs gone, so went the insurance. And without jobs we can't afford to see doctors or buy medications.

SO MANY of my friends, always middle class, have fallen on hard times, as in, going from middle class to serious poverty. if that weren't bad enough, they can't get basic health care, much less dental care, which can be equally dangerous to one's health.

This past winter, I lost my 61-year-old aunt, completely unexpectedly, through a completely preventable stroke. My uncle had been out of work for some time and they had no health insurance. Had she been able to regularly see a doctor I'm sure her condition could have been a) detected and b) treated. Instead, we lost her at a tragically young age.

I have other stories as well but, suffice it to say, another point of attrition to the Boomers is/will be lack of health care. Some of us are just going to keel over from completely treatable causes. It's the New World Order's version of the Final Solution.

[midnight]

170. K&R for the baby boomers....

[mnhtnbb]

171. Not waiting until I'm 66--filed for early (62) benefits that begin in May.

I worked it out. I collect enough in the four early years that it would
take another 17 years to make up the difference with the larger amount
begun at 66. I'm not playing that game.

[truedelphi]

172. That is a good point you are making.

But the fact remains, neither you or I or any other person should be required to have their benefits so decreased. I have heard it is a fourteen percent decrease per year - so for me to do this next year, knowing that the government expects me to wait until I am 67, means a huge loss in the bennies.

[truedelphi]

173. Here is how someone named

AmericanAnt over on DailyKos considered the problem, mathematically speaking:

"The math on this is interesting, IMHO (3+ / 0-)

"According to the linked site, if you have a full benefits retirement age of 67 and retire at age 62 your monthly benefit is reduced by 30%.

"Meanwhile, their actuaries claim that the life expectancy for people who retired in 2000 was 81 for males and 84 for females. So, lets assume that I live to 81 (since I'm a male, but I assume that OleHippieChick is either a female or a poultry farmer) and compare the outcomes.

"81-62 is 19 years of benefits at 70% of the rate, or the equivalent of 13.3 years at the 100% level. 81-67 is 14 years, you can see that you end up slightly worse off if you live to the expected age, but only by about 5%.

"The break-even point is 16.67 years of early retirement vs. 11.67 years of full retirement, or about 2.33 years shorter than average life expectancy. Clearly if you have an inkling about your particular chances based on health, family history, etc. you might well be advised to take one or the other based on that information.

"If you were to live to 90, in the early retirement scenario you collect 19.6 years worth of full benefits, but would have gotten 23 years of benefits if you had waited to 67. This turns out to be about a 15% reduction overall.

"Clearly, the goal is to retire early and die young "