News of the Day

[Brad]

58 minutes ago, GA Russell said:

The Congressional Budget Office reports that the Social Security fund is headed for bankruptcy in ten years.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/social-security-will-be-bankrupt-by-2033-on-current-trajectory-cbo-report_5003529.html

You can’t be serious relying on on this rag as a source. 

[JSngry]

Falun Gong... 

Homework should be done 

[Chuck Nessa]

Anyway to block this shit?

[medjuck]

5 hours ago, GA Russell said:

The Congressional Budget Office reports that the Social Security fund is headed for bankruptcy in ten years.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/social-security-will-be-bankrupt-by-2033-on-current-trajectory-cbo-report_5003529.html

Bullshit.

[Dan Gould]

9 hours ago, Brad said:

You can’t be serious relying on on this rag as a source. 

Original source:

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58564

In CBO’s projections, spending on Social Security exceeds revenues to the program in 2022 and increases relative to GDP over the next 75 years, while revenues remain stable. If combined, the program’s trust funds would be exhausted in 2033.

 

CBO projects that if Social Security outlays were limited to what is payable from annual revenues after the trust funds’ exhaustion in 2033, Social Security benefits would be about 23 percent smaller than scheduled benefits in 2034. They would be 35 percent smaller by 2096, and the gap would remain stable thereafter.

 

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Dan Gould

[Kevin Bresnahan]

5 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Original source:

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58564

In CBO’s projections, spending on Social Security exceeds revenues to the program in 2022 and increases relative to GDP over the next 75 years, while revenues remain stable. If combined, the program’s trust funds would be exhausted in 2033.

 

CBO projects that if Social Security outlays were limited to what is payable from annual revenues after the trust funds’ exhaustion in 2033, Social Security benefits would be about 23 percent smaller than scheduled benefits in 2034. They would be 35 percent smaller by 2096, and the gap would remain stable thereafter.

The way I read this is that the money paid in by us old-timers was done prior to the recent surge in salaries in the US. Therefore, when these people with these new heftier salaries retire, us old-timers would not have put enough into Social Security to cover their higher-than-planned payouts.

"In CBO’s projections, average retirement and disability benefits in the first full year of claiming increase over time because of growth in average earnings. For example, initial benefits for retired workers born in the 1990s (who turn 65 beginning in 2055) are larger, on average and after adjusting for the effects of inflation, than for earlier cohorts. However, initial benefits replace a similar share of past earnings for successive cohorts."

I think can see where this is coming from as I know of quite a few 30-somethings making big bucks (a few over $150K/year) in their young careers due to intense competition among employers. This would have been unheard of when I was 30-something and since your Social Security payments are based on your lifetime earnings, these people will qualify for maximum payouts. Not a lot of people in my generation will earn enough to hit that maximum.

BTW - making big, big bucks does not mean you put big, big bucks into the Social Security fund. In 2023, withholding maxes out when someone earns more than $160,200, so these larger salaries are not going to contribute as much to the general fund as is needed.

[medjuck]

7 hours ago, bresna said:

The way I read this is that the money paid in by us old-timers was done prior to the recent surge in salaries in the US. Therefore, when these people with these new heftier salaries retire, us old-timers would not have put enough into Social Security to cover their higher-than-planned payouts.

"In CBO’s projections, average retirement and disability benefits in the first full year of claiming increase over time because of growth in average earnings. For example, initial benefits for retired workers born in the 1990s (who turn 65 beginning in 2055) are larger, on average and after adjusting for the effects of inflation, than for earlier cohorts. However, initial benefits replace a similar share of past earnings for successive cohorts."

I think can see where this is coming from as I know of quite a few 30-somethings making big bucks (a few over $150K/year) in their young careers due to intense competition among employers. This would have been unheard of when I was 30-something and since your Social Security payments are based on your lifetime earnings, these people will qualify for maximum payouts. Not a lot of people in my generation will earn enough to hit that maximum.

12 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Original source:

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58564

In CBO’s projections, spending on Social Security exceeds revenues to the program in 2022 and increases relative to GDP over the next 75 years, while revenues remain stable. If combined, the program’s trust funds would be exhausted in 2033.

 

CBO projects that if Social Security outlays were limited to what is payable from annual revenues after the trust funds’ exhaustion in 2033, Social Security benefits would be about 23 percent smaller than scheduled benefits in 2034. They would be 35 percent smaller by 2096, and the gap would remain stable thereafter.

 

 

Anyone notice the "if." at the beginning of this paragraph. Also it doesn't say it will be bankrupt even in 2096.

And the people who get the maximum payout also have to pay in the maximum, which, I believe has just been raised though it should be raised more.  As bresna says payments to social security max out after $160,000 income but the but the payouts from Social Security are also capped.  

And I hate to say that in the US life expectancy has fallen by about 2 years which saves Social Security money. Speaking of which I'd take a bet that social security will be around in 10 years but I probably won't be around to collect.  

Edited January 25, 2023 by medjuck

[Dan Gould]

40 minutes ago, bresna said:

The way I read this is that the money paid in by us old-timers was done prior to the recent surge in salaries in the US. Therefore, when these people with these new heftier salaries retire, us old-timers would not have put enough into Social Security to cover their higher-than-planned payouts.

"In CBO’s projections, average retirement and disability benefits in the first full year of claiming increase over time because of growth in average earnings. For example, initial benefits for retired workers born in the 1990s (who turn 65 beginning in 2055) are larger, on average and after adjusting for the effects of inflation, than for earlier cohorts. However, initial benefits replace a similar share of past earnings for successive cohorts."

I think can see where this is coming from as I know of quite a few 30-somethings making big bucks (a few over $150K/year) in their young careers due to intense competition among employers. This would have been unheard of when I was 30-something and since your Social Security payments are based on your lifetime earnings, these people will qualify for maximum payouts. Not a lot of people in my generation will earn enough to hit that maximum.

BTW - making big, big bucks does not mean you put big, big bucks into the Social Security fund. In 2023, withholding maxes out when someone earns more than $160,200, so these larger salaries are not going to contribute as much to the general fund as is needed.

SS has always been a pay-as-you-go system.  What you or I put in is immaterial to the solvency.  SS collected more than needed from a broader base of workers -in the past. This made it "over funded" but since the revenue always went into general expenditures, it was never 'set aside' in any real sense.

The over-collection time is rapidly coming to an end - ten years away right now, when, yes the Social Security Trust fund (which was filled with T-Bills, not actual money) is running out and will be ... what's the word? Bankrupt in 2033. Would there be less objection to the source if they had said "empty" instead?

At that point, there will be a nearly 25% reduction in benefits across the board.  But apparently for many on this site, dismissing the messenger is easier than dealing with the fundamental accuracy of the message.

(And by the way, I am not sure if this analysis takes into consideration any intervening recession, wherein we can predict that inflows will decline as employment declines, and outflows will increase as inevitably some close-to-retirement people will choose to file for benefits earlier than planned, if their employment situation dictates it.)

[Rooster_Ties]

On 5/14/2022 at 4:35 PM, sonnymax said:

Parents sue their son and daughter-in-law, demanding a grandchild or $675,000

My wife and I would love to be grandparents someday too!

It’s just that intermediate step that’s always scared the bejesus out of us (since we never had any kids ourselves).

[Larry Kart]

13 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Anyway to block this shit?

We're working on it. Sending a stop it or you're gone ultimatum to G.A. Russell is my idea of how Jim and I should go.

[Dan Gould]

12 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

We're working on it. Sending a stop it or you're gone ultimatum to G.A. Russell is my idea of how Jim and I should go.

What exactly is the "shit"? I've provided links and pull quotes to the original source material. The piece is accurate. 

Or was it the Trump quote at the end of the piece that brought politics into it?

The fact of Social  Security facing a point of insolvency - inability to pay full benefits by law in less than a decade - should not be controversial as "News of The Day" regardless of what outlet is reporting it.

[Dub Modal]

1 minute ago, Dan Gould said:

What exactly is the "shit"? I've provided links and pull quotes to the original source material. The piece is accurate. 

Or was it the Trump quote at the end of the piece that brought politics into it?

The fact of Social  Security facing a point of insolvency - inability to pay full benefits by law in less than a decade - should not be controversial as "News of The Day" regardless of what outlet is reporting it.

ET is a hyper conservative site, and is inherently political. Linking them here sends traffic their way. Your link was the one worth the share. If ET gets anything correct, then it falls under broken clock status. 

[JSngry]

34 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

ET is a hyper conservative site, and is inherently political. Linking them here sends traffic their way. Your link was the one worth the share. If ET gets anything correct, then it falls under broken clock status. 

This.

[Larry Kart]

Google "Social Security: The Phony Crisis" for a detailed refutation of this chimera and an explanation of what is behind this b.s. crisis-mongering.

[Larry Kart]

Also this:

What Crisis? It Ain't Broke, So No Need To Fix It An op-ed by Mark Weisbrot and Dean Baker     The latest Social Security trustees' report, whose numbers even the White House uses, predicts that the Social Security program can pay all promised benefits for the next 38 years—with no changes at all. The June 2004 estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security can pay all promised benefits without changes for even longer, until 2052. That's nearly half a century. And we are supposed to be worried about this? It brings to mind the image of Woody Allen as a nerdy young child in Annie Hall,becoming suddenly depressed because he has discovered that "the universe is expanding" and life on Earth is ultimately doomed. Granted, 38 years is not an eternity. But even after 2042, the Social Security trustees say they will be able to pay an average benefit that is actually higher than what workers receive today—indefinitely. That's in 2004 dollars—adjusted for inflation. Social Security benefits are programmed to rise not only with price inflation, but also with wages. So Congress will at some point have to increase taxes or shave the benefits promised to future generations. But that's no different from what's been done before. In fact the projected shortfall for the next 75 years is smaller than shortfalls covered by adjustments in each of the following decades: the 1950s, '60s, '70s, and '80s. It is also about one-third the size of the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration. In other words, it's a non-issue. Or should be. Yet most Americans seem terribly confused about the basic facts. During the third presidential debate last fall, moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS told the candidates that Social Security was "running out of money." Neither candidate corrected him, and the press did not note the error. Here are some of the obfuscations and accounting tricks—or misunderstandings—that have created false impressions about Social Security's finances: The disappearing trust fund: Some people say that Social Security will run into trouble in 2018. But this is like saying that Bill Gates will be strapped if he works only part time. He will still have $40 billion in assets, enough to keep him living well for a long time. Similarly, the Social Security trust fund will have more than $3.7 trillion in today's dollars in 2018. Combined with payroll tax revenues, that is enough to cover promised benefits until 2042, the trustees' report says. "That money's all been spent." When anyone lends money to the federal government by buying a bond, the government spends it. But the government still pays interest and repays what it borrowed. That goes for the Social Security trust fund. Social Security has been running annual surpluses (now at more than $150 billion) since 1983. By law it must invest that surplus in U.S. Treasury obligations. "But the trust fund is only holding I.O.U.'s—just pieces of paper!" Another canard: All bonds are I.O.U.'s. Those "pieces of paper" are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, which has never, ever defaulted on its bonds. "The baby boomers' retirement will bankrupt Social Security." Far from it. The first boomers actually begin retiring in 2008. Most of them will be dead before Social Security faces any financial difficulties. "There are currently 3.3 workers paying into Social Security for every beneficiary; by 2035, there will be only 2.1." True enough, but deceptive and not scary as it sounds. Productivity (output per hour) will grow substantially during the same period, so we won't need nearly as many working people to support a larger retired population. "If nothing is done, Social Security and Medicare will eat up 90 percent of our federal budget by 2050." The trick here is throwing in Medicare, a separate program. The projected costs of Medicare are indeed out of control—a result of spiraling health care costs. This makes a strong case for health care reform, but that has nothing to do with Social Security. The bottom line is that Social Security is more financially sound today than it has been throughout most of its 69-year history, according to Social Security trustees' numbers. If workers in 2050, who will be earning on average 68 percent more in real, inflation-adjusted dollars than they are today, have to pay 1 or 2 percent more of their income in taxes—as they have in the past—they won't be able to complain much. They will still enjoy higher living standards than we do today. And Social Security will provide much larger real annual benefits for longer retirements when their turn comes. The impending crisis of Social Security is a myth. Without it, however, Bush's initiative to slash benefits and partially privatize the program wouldn't have a prayer.

[Dan Gould]

Seriously, Larry? You skipped an important bit:

 

Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot
Social Security: The Phony Crisis
©1999, 200 pages
Cloth $27.00 ISBN: 978-0-226-03544-4
Paper $12.00 ISBN: 978-0-226-03546-8

You use something from the last fucking millenium to pretend that all is still fine? That's the kind of shit that really ought to be kept out of this thread.

 

[HutchFan]

There are clear rules for this forum:  No POLITICS.  No RELIGION.

In what world is this not politics?!?!?  If anyone wants to talk politics or religion, GO ELSEWHERE.

That's enough!  Do NOT poison this well. 

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by HutchFan

[Larry Kart]

Sorry Hutch Fan -- you're quite right. This thread is now closed.

[Rooster_Ties]

1 minute ago, Larry Kart said:

Sorry Hutch Fan -- you're quite right. This thread is now closed.

[Teasing the Korean]

6 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Sorry Hutch Fan -- you're quite right. This thread is now closed.

It would have been nice to be able to keep a thread like this for funny or bizarre headlines, but it couldn't last.

[Big Al]

I gotta say: this thread depressed me. Started off quirky and then went downhill. If you're reading this, somehow the thread is opened again. If you're not reading this, then this is a moot point. Just makes me glad the Politics page is no longer in existence here.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Big Al