We have updated our earned benefits project which keeps track of Members of Congress’ comments on wanting to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and health care.
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Lumping Social Security and Medicare together and calling them ‘entitlements’ is also telling. These are earned benefits, not entitlements, which American workers have contributed to throughout their working lives. Conservatives have long used the word 'entitlements’ to make those earned benefits seem like welfare.
via Entitled to Know.
Workers in Louisville face a major — and very real — retirement crisis. Wealth inequality and workplace changes have practically sawed off two of the legs of the traditional retirement stool: pensions and private savings.
More than half of today’s retirees rely on the third leg of the stool, Social Security, for most of their income. (The average Social Security benefit in Kentucky is roughly $16,000 per year, only about $3,500 above the federal poverty line for individuals.) Even with Social Security, some 13% of Kentucky seniors live in poverty. The good news is that workers can increase the size of their future Social Security checks by delaying retirement.
Read more from our new op-ed by clicking here.
But I feel from all the budgets that I’ve passed, normalizing entitlement reform, pushing the cause of entitlement reform and the house passing entitlement reform, I’m very proud of that fact. But yeah, of course more work needs to be done, and it really is entitlements. That’s where the work needs to be done, and I’m going to keep fighting for that.
Speaker Paul Ryan via Politico.
Related Reading:
Seniors Relieved as America’s Privatizer-In-Chief Heads for the Exits.
- House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement from Congress lifts a very dark cloud that has hung over older Americans for nearly two decades. During that time, Speaker Ryan has been the Privatizer-in-Chief on Capitol Hill – advocating to turn Medicare into a voucher program and to gamble retirees’ Social Security benefits on the whims of Wall Street.
“But at the end of the day…we’ve got to have entitlement reform and that is why we keep pushing for our health care reform and that’s why we keep pushing for entitlement reform.” - Speaker Paul Ryan
This is no surprise to us. Speaker Ryan has been trying for years to cut earned benefit programs.
We have been keeping track of Congress’ actions on earned benefits and health care.
Click here to view our Congressional timeline.
It’s no secret that American workers face a major retirement crisis. Wealth inequality and workplace changes mean more and more retirees have come to rely on Social Security for most of their income. But the average monthly Social Security benefit in Maryland is $1,472 — or roughly $18,000 per year, which is only slightly above the federal poverty line. And even with Social Security, some 7 percent of Maryland’s seniors live in poverty.
The good news is that Maryland workers can increase the size of their future Social Security checks by delaying retirement. Delayed claiming past the early retirement age of 62 results in bigger monthly benefit checks for life, and waiting until after the current full retirement age of 66 yields even greater gains — up to 44 percent more than early claiming.
But too few Marylanders are taking advantage of this “delay-and-gain” strategy, or are even aware of it. The average age for claiming Social Security in Maryland is 64 — two years older than the minimum, but early enough to be penalized with lower benefits, which are cut by roughly 6 percent for every year that they file for Social Security before the full retirement age.
Read our full op-ed by clicking here.
I think any budget that we pass out of the House must include entitlement reform
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.
Related Reading:
New Poll Shows Majorities Do Not Support GOP Proposals for Social Security and Medicare.
Sign Our Petition:
Whether America is facing a “retirement crisis” in which seniors are making do with shrinking financial resources has been widely debated. But here’s a telling metric: Seniors are making a larger share of bankruptcy filings.
That’s the finding of a new paper by academic researchers affiliated with the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, which periodically samples personal bankruptcy filings from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. “Older Americans are increasingly likely to file consumer bankruptcy,” they write, “and their representation among those in bankruptcy has never been higher.”
via Los Angeles Times.
Related Reading:
Social Security will be more important
than ever for retirees.
We are asking Congress to BOOST Social Security benefits for all working Americans. Click here to sign our petition.
Asked Monday if the Trump administration would address “entitlement reform,” White House chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow said it will “probably” look at “larger entitlements” next year. Entitlement reform generally refers to changes or cuts to large government social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or food stamps.
via CNBC.
Related Reading:
Trump Advisor Re-Affirms Commitment to Cutting Social Security & Medicare.
- This aligns with comments from National Republican Congressional Committee chair, Rep. Steve Stivers, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and several other key GOP members about the need to pay for last year’s tax cuts by ‘reforming’ Social Security and Medicare. ‘Reforming,’ of course, means cutting and privatizing.
Social Security already helps millions of younger working-age families (approximately 16 million beneficiaries) through disability, dependents’ and survivors’ benefits. The truth is that this family leave proposal from Senator Rubio, an outspoken advocate of “entitlement reform” (code for cutting earned benefits), is – at its core – a benefit cut for future retirees and their families.
via Entitled to Know.
“I am hopeful that after this we’ll be able to tackle critical priorities of the President like infrastructure, like another round tax cuts, like entitlement reform…”
Rep. Gaetz via Fox Business.
Related Reading:
We have been keeping track of statements like this and then add them to our Earned Benefits and Health care project.
Find out if your Member of Congress has voiced support for cuts to earned benefits in 2018 by clicking here.
