To improve that balance, Congress would have to cut benefits, raise taxes, or find another way to put both the retirement and disability funds on firmer footing. Lawmakers have in the past transferred funds from the retirement to the disability fund, and vice versa, nearly a dozen times.
See more posts like this on Tumblr
#politics #disability #social security #SSDI #SSI #retirement #retirement crisis #seniors #p2 #entitlements #114th congress #congress #GOP #the disabledMax Ritchman, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare: “America’s seniors understand all too well that our nation faces a retirement crisis and improving Social Security benefits is vital to keeping millions from poverty. Rep. Linda Sanchez’s ‘Strengthening Social Security Act’ makes several important improvements for seniors by: phasing out the payroll tax cap so that the wealthy pay their fair share, creating a Cost of Living adjustment for the elderly and boosting benefits for all retirees including widows/widowers. NCPSSM strongly supports this legislation and applauds Congresswoman Sanchez for doing the right thing for America’s seniors and their families.”
![Earlier this week, Members of Congress and allies met to discuss Social Security and the GOP Congress’ manufactured crisis.
““Seniors, I stand with you all the way [on Social Security].”
- Rep. Jan Schakowsky
“We are in a crisis right now. A...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/93d9258801da499ce7712598d0be22b4/tumblr_njo11hjqsI1qd3gmvo1_1280.jpg)
Earlier this week, Members of Congress and allies met to discuss Social Security and the GOP Congress’ manufactured crisis.
“Seniors, I stand with you all the way [on Social Security].”
- Rep. Jan Schakowsky“We are in a crisis right now. A retirement crisis. Not a Social Security crisis.” - Rep. Jan Schakowsky
“Stop manufacturing a crisis with the Social Security disability trust fund.”
- Senator Bernie Sanders“This week anyone earning a million dollars a year will have paid 100% of their payroll taxes for 2015.”
- Max Richtman
Social Security’s retirement, survivors, and disability benefits are closely integrated, sharing the same benefit formula and similar work-history requirements. Like the rest of Social Security, SSDI largely serves older Americans. About three-fourths of beneficiaries are over 50, and more than one-third are over 60. SSDI beneficiaries seamlessly switch to retirement benefits at age 66. Thus, cutting disability benefits would cut the retirement benefits of the affected workers as well.
via CBPP.
Trump’s budget proposal, though widely disregarded by congressional appropriators, would cut $31.4 billion from SSDI over 10 years, according to the Washington Post.
“I recognize that he’s going to be saving Social Security Retirement, but he’s not saving Social Security Disability Insurance, which benefits more than 10 million Americans,” NBC’s Peter Alexander told Mulvaney in a press briefing Tuesday, pointing to Trump’s repeated campaign promises not to cut Social Security. “So is the President keeping his promise on that program?”
Mulvaney argued that SSDI “is not what most people would consider to be Social Security.”
via Talking Points Memo.
Discussions about Social Security in politics and the media often focus on its role as a retirement program that provides vital protections to seniors. But the fact is that Social Security provides vital retirement, disability, and survivors’ insurance for all generations of Americans. In addition to significantly reducing senior poverty, Social Security is the nation’s largest children’s program and lifted 6.9 million Americans under age 65 out of poverty in 2014. And no generation has a greater stake in the fight to protect and expand Social Security benefits than today’s young workers, the millennial generation.
via Talk Poverty.
There is a misconception that Social Security is just for “old people” when in fact, about 4.4 million American children receive approximately $2.7 billion in Social Security benefits each month because at least one of their parents is disabled, retired or deceased.
The future of Social Security is shaping up to be a major contention in the 2016 presidential campaign and women, who depend more heavily on the system, have much at stake.
“Social Security is often women’s only asset,” said Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist…
Eleanor’s Hope
To alleviate the retirement crisis, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare launched a national initiative in October to modernize the Social Security system. Called Eleanor’s Hope, in honor of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt who championed passage of the Social Security Act in 1935, the initiative takes a comprehensive long-range approach to reflect women’s contributions as breadwinners as well as family caregivers.
In addition to public retirement credits for people who take time off from paid employment to serve as family caregivers and for retirees who have worked in low-wage occupations, the plan also calls for strengthening the Social Security cost-of-living allowance and boosting benefits of all current and future beneficiaries.
via Womens E-News.
via twitter.
Related Reading:
To ease the retirement crisis, Social Security benefits must be strengthened rather than cut. For that reason, the National Committee has endorsed H. Res. 393, the resolution introduced by Representatives Jan Schakowsky, Doris Matsui and Patrick Murphy which supports boosting Social Security.
SOCIAL SECURITY
Paul has called for the partial privatization of Social Security, a program he previously referred to as “a Ponzi scheme.”
He proposes the gradual increase of the retirement age for Social Security recipients and promotes means testing benefits to reduce payouts to high-income retirees.
Paul is also an advocate of reforming the Social Security disability trust fund, which is set to run out of money in 2016.
In January, Paul complained that “over half of the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts,” according to a recording by American Bridge, a liberal tracking group.
Paul later clarified that, “there are people who are truly disabled, so the program should first of all prioritize those who are truly disabled.”
via Business Insider.
For months, conservative think-tankers who undermine the value of Social
Security, deny the existence of a national retirement crisis and the
need to boost benefits have been banging their drum for benefit cuts
especially hard. Why? Because a scarcely reported CBO report on Social Security replacement rates
(now you see why we don’t usually share these kind of stories) claimed
Americans received more in benefits than previously believed or reported
by Social Security actuaries.
via Entitled to Know.
