Those poor millionaires, being asked to contribute to society. How could you?!
Hey. These hard working millionaires are tricking this money down by buying stocks and investing in real estate and then upping the price of rent to continue to increase their wealth so they can push to the next tier of millionaire".
Reposting from another thread:
Social security has been 10-15 years away from being insolvent for 80 years. It will always be 10-15 years away from being insolvent because of the way it’s calculated.
When the CBO or whoever scores it they can predict certain things like the number of recipients, the size of their payments, and inflation. They aren’t allowed to take into account things that Congress may (but definitely will) do in the future, like raising the cap on social security taxes roughly with inflation. It went up from $160200 in 2023 to $168600 in 2024. This is a rare bipartisan, uncontroversial thing. Congress almost always follows the SSA recommendation exactly.
It would be more accurate to say “if the social security cap stays at $168600 for 10 years, social security will be insolvent.”
The people pushing this bullshit know it’s bullshit. They do it to make people think they’ll never get social security so they can get enough voters on board with killing it, like they’ve been trying to do for 88 years.
Don’t fall for it.
Apologies, but your specific example is incorrect. The cap on social security taxes is adjusted every year not by act of congress, but by existing law that indexes the cap to inflation. Therefore, it is already baked into the way it is scored and is not ignored.
You are correct that scoring cannot take into account any actions congress may take.
This time is a little different though than history. From 1984-2020, Social Security took in more in revenue than it paid out on benefits. It is now running at a deficit. Since being formed, it has run at a deficit less than 15 total years, and most of them earlier on. The social security trust fund has never been depleted during that time either. Without any changes to law, it will continue to run at a deficit until the late 2030s when the trust fund would be depleted and taxes alone would cover a projected 80% of benefits.
That 80% is why it’s bullshit to your point. There are so many simple, easy ways to solve this and if they do nothing, we could continue to pay out 80% of benefits with no other changes but that’ll never happen. It would be political suicide to literally starve our retired population. My favorite way to address it is removing the cap, but there’s other small adjustments that make a huge difference. Things like changing the inflation adjustment to a similar but lower index, raising the retirement age, raising the tax by less than a percent, means testing, etc … and the thing that pisses me off is the sooner we take one of these actions, the more of the trust fund is preserved, and the impact is so much greater. I don’t like the other solutions and would strongly prefer raising the cap, but I’d take most of them over inaction, depleting the trust fund, and reducing benefits.
I was trying to keep it short and simple by skipping a step but yes, the SSA follows a formula to raise the cap. But anything the executive does must be authorized by Congress, including the current formula which was set in a reauthorization bill back in the 80s (I think, maybe the 70s, apologies, but I’m not able to look it up right now). So far, every time a budget is passed and every few years when the SSA needs to be reauthorized, they’ve left them alone. Despite the occasional bill messing with the SSA getting introduced, they never get out of committee.
As far as the CBO goes I don’t recall ever reading about cap increases in their report summaries on the trust fund. Although I have read their reports on the effect of various proposed changes to the way the cap is calculated. I’ll have to do some more looking when I have the time, but I was definitely under the impression cap increases were in a category the CBO didn’t anticipate future changes to when evaluating the health of the trust fund. I thought normally the COLAs would also fall into this category but that is overridden by them being mandatory spending, as opposed to discretionary, so they have to be taken into account. I’m certainly no expert and wouldn’t be surprised to find out I missed something.
It’s still time to scrap the cap of $168,600 income that has to pay in. Pay the full amount on all our income, or GTFO of the US.
Says the kender? An entire RPG culture based on “innocent” theft and misappropriation? Hunh.
edit: Ah tes, the downvoters are, yet again, too young to know better. When will Reddit stop leaking? 🤦🏼♂️
Ok, I will engage as a Kender.
First of all, me calling myself a Commie is actually superfluous here as evidenced by the Siberian natives that were so damn communist that the USSR couldn’t deal with them.
Secondly, the fact that you use the artificial concept of ownership to describe Kender society, shows that you know nothing of Kender. We own nothing, we don’t understand ownership at all, unless you big folk explain what you mean.
The biggest crime one can commit as a Kender is not having children. That comes because we are afflicted with wanderlust. I’m a perfect example of this having lived in 49/50 states in the US, and planning to “‘retire’” on a ship that I own, but pay for with charter cruises to everywhere else I can get to. I digress.
If you don’t return to Kenderhome by your 60th birthday and have at least two children with your council chosen betrothed, or a romantic partner, then we will dispatch bounty hunters to bring you back, alive, and deposit you in the “palace” of Kenderhome. You are then on house arrest, and not able to leave the grounds. This is possibly the worst possible punishment one could give a Kender, other than solitary confinement, thankfully all your locks are trivial for us to pass through, so no one has ever held a Kender in solitary confinement.
The Kender on the whole are an annoyance to those of you primitive races that understand the concept of ownership, but that’s not our fault. You should learn the concept of belonging.
Edit, I didn’t downvote you.
Edit 2: I’m less than 20 years from having to have podlings, if Krynn has a direct connection to us.
Edit 3: while I have created a Hoopak and a Chappak, IRL, I don’t own them. If you need to borrow the Hoopak, or the Chappak,.or pretty much anything else in my possession, I will happily lend it to you, knowing you’ll give it back to the community as good, or better, than you got it. It’s a real shame I can’t rely on normal humans to do the same.
Edit 4: All Weapons should also be tools and musical instruments.
Edit 5: Yes I’m an angry Kender. We only use money because you force us to. We have/had a society that works so damn well the biggest issue we have is forgetting to have kids. I’m extremely disappointed in the lack of progress, despite the insane amount of wealth that human society has produced.
Your logical fallacy is showing, and your comment is wholly bullshit. Bye, Felicia.
They spend more as they get in, it will run out. No amount of tomfoolery will change that.
They’ve been saying that my entire life, my dad’s entire life, and when my dad was my age, my grandfather would tell him he’s heard the same things his entire life going back to the 40s.
For a couple decades the disingenuous doom -and-gloomers told us no way could social security ever deal with the baby boomers. All through the 80s and 90s they told us we might as well privatize it or kill it all together. The only time wall street shut up about it was when they were too busy jerking off to the thought of getting their hands on that money. Well, the youngest of the boomers turn 60 in '24, they’re almost all in and the end times keep getting pushed back, from the 80s to the 90s to the 00s to the 10s to the 20s and now 2035. It’s like a doomsday cult that keeps pushing the date when the apocalypse doesn’t arrive at the appointed time.
You’ll have to excuse me for not getting worked up over the 40th new year I’ve heard for the sky falling.
And for what it’s worth, managing the COLAs, the cap, the percentages, and anything else the SSA has done throughout it’s existence isn’t “tomfoolery,” it’s accounting. And damn good accounting so far. The SSA being such a well run government institution probably makes republicans hate them almost as much as the tax itself.
LOL, just posted the same, but not nearly so learned or eloquent.
KIDS: You’re getting your Social Security. And remember, us old folks are not going to go senile and vote against it!
It’s called the “third rail” of American politics for a reason. Touch it, you die.
Sure upto now it’s been fine…
But a WHOLE LOT of new people will be getting check soon…
And military and debt spending are through the roof And the normal people are paying groceries and rent with their credit card…
I’m. Sure they’ll solve it tho, last minute.
Sure granny, go believe them,I’m sure those 2 trillion arnt in some loss leading 1% government bonds
It is not going to “run out”. That is republican talking point and propaganda. God damn that myth is believed by everyone.
The concepts of solvency, sustainability, and budget impact are common in discussions of Social Security, but are not well understood. Currently, the Social Security Board of Trustees projects program cost to rise by 2035 so that taxes will be enough to pay for only 75 percent of scheduled benefits. ^1
75% of benefits will still be paid in even the worse case scenario. The fear mongering is not necessary.
GenX here. Got some free financial advice in 1993 or so. Asked about Social Security being cancelled because my entire class ('89) said we didn’t expect to receive it.
She looked me straight in the eye and said, “No. There will be riots in the streets before Social Security is cancelled. This is a non-issue, you’re getting it. Any other concerns?”
GenZ, 30-years later, “We’re gonna get cancelled!”
No fuck you won’t. Old people vote. Isn’t that what they’re always bitching about? Think we’ll shoot our retirement straight in the skull?!
Also Gen X, graduated in '96, and was warned by my econ/government teacher that we need to have well funded IRAs, because we won’t be getting enough social security benefits to even pay for food, much less rent, medicine, or healthcare.
This is what they mean when they say Social Security is basically bankrupt. It won’t pay for shit, and I live with people who currently draw on SS. It already doesn’t even pay the 1/3 of their retirement it was supposed to. We don’t get the retirement plans (pensions) from the companies we work for that was supposed to cover that last 1/3 of our retirements.
It was supposed to be a three-pronged plan: Social Security, 401k, and corporate pension. Each of these has problems on their own, but a hybrid solution could cover for each other’s issues.
Now, corporate pensions are rare, 401k’s are highly vulnerable to stock market crashes, and Social Security is being slowly strangled.
They will make laws to change it but grandfather in people born before a certain age
However we do have the worst case scenario of 75% of planned hanging over our heads. In the next ten years or so, either we’ll take a big hit on income or there will be painful changes to prevent it. I don’t like either of those. Like everything else we can’t seem to do, the best fix is to do it ahead of time to greatly reduce the impact. It is important that Congress get off their asses and address it now so whatever adjustment will hurt less.
Previous adjustments have included raising the cap, taxing more benefits, raising the retirement age, and changes to the formula for cost of living adjustments. We really ought to consider a balance of all those and more so we spread the pain
“I only robbed you of 25% of your income, what are you complaining about?”
What people mean when they say “run out” is that it won’t be able to keep up with its obligations. That is objectively bad. People will get reduced payments. There will be pain.
What people mean when they say “run out” is that it won’t be able to keep up with its obligations.
Huh. Maybe I’m just built diff, but when I hear “run out”, I think “run out”, as in “none will be left”; “the bucket will be empty”; “there will be nothing left in the coffers”.
Maybe I can illustrate better. Imagine your boss goes to pay you your paycheck and gives you and your coworkers 75% of what you’re supposed to be paid instead of 100%. You say, “Hey, where’s my other 25%” and they respond, “I don’t have any more, we ran out of money to pay you. We had to adjust to stay sustainable. You’ll only get 75% until our finances change.” Would you say, “well, since there’s still savings maybe, and there’s gonna be a bunch of new money the next time you go to pay out, just not enough, you technically didn’t run out. That’s technically something else?” I don’t know, maybe you would. I’d call that running out, though.
You are just changing the definition of words so that your new meaning lines up. Which I guess is one way to approach the argument. But not necessarily a helpful one.
$168,600
That’s the cap. It is clearly and obviously only benefiting the rich. Absolutely insane.
It also benefits the upper middle class. And middle class in HCOL areas.
It should be adjusted based on cost of living.
Making $150k in NYC is like making $50k in middle america.
No, it isn’t. That’s bullshit, a talking point designed to get you to give up on supporting it politically.
But do you know what would help it in actuarial terms? 2 things:
-
raise the federal minimum wage
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remove the cap on income subject to the social security tax
When suppressing wages became a bipartisan affair, it hurt Social Security just as much as it did workers on the low end of the wage scale.