Retirement, Social Security and long-term care:
Amid doubts about the soundness of the Social Security system, most Americans reject the idea of reducing benefits for future retirees. When asked to think about the long-term future of Social Security, only 25% say some reductions in benefits for future retirees will need to be made, while 74% say benefits should not be reduced in any way.
via Pew Research.
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For years, seniors have told us that they need their Social Security benefits boosted. They want fairer cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) that reflect retirees’ true living expenses. They say it’s time for the wealthy to start paying their fair share in Social Security payroll contributions. Congressman John Larson’s Social Security 2100 Act would achieve all of that – and more.
The bill would keep the system solvent for nearly the rest of this century while modestly boosting benefits – and cutting taxes for retirees. Not only do seniors and advocates support this bill, the American public has affirmed the proposals that it embodies in poll after poll, across party lines and age groups.
Older Americans are the country’s largest voting bloc, but during the first four Democratic presidential debates, the moderators didn’t ask even one question about Social Security. This makes no sense.
How long do seniors have to wait until they hear the Democratic presidential candidates’ positions on Social Security during a primary debate? Older Americans are the country’s largest voting bloc, but during the first four Democratic presidential debates, the moderators didn’t ask even one question about Social Security. This makes no sense.
The father of Social Security is one of the most revered Democratic presidents. And yet not a single mention of the program during debates by the party of Franklin Roosevelt? The 63 million citizens who currently rely on their earned benefits to remain financially healthy want to hear the candidates answer at least one debate question – and provide some real answers. The next Democratic debate on October 15th provides yet another opportunity to raise this crucial topic.
Instead they want to tie benefits to the consumer price index for the elderly, or CPI-E, an experimental index that gives more weight to the health care and housing costs that typically account for a larger share of older Americans’ budgets. The CPI-E also puts less value on transportation costs, since seniors are less likely to have to commute to jobs.
In an online survey by the National Academy of Social Insurance, 64% of respondents favored an increased COLA ‘to more fully protect seniors against inflation.’ In fact, majority support for a COLA boost cut across income groups, age brackets, and party affiliations.
Do older Americans want bigger Social Security checks and expanded Medicare coverage – or do they want their benefits cut?
That is the fundamental question for seniors and their families with less than two weeks until the mid-term elections. The majority party in Congress has proposed time and again to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits under the guise of ‘entitlement reform.’ Leader Mitch McConnell just attributed the swelling federal debt to retirees’ earned benefits – when the real culprit was the 2017 tax package that mainly benefited the wealthy and big corporations.
The majority party’s 2018 and 2019 budgets would have taken a $500 billion bite out of Medicare and $64 billion from Social Security. And make no mistake – conservative tropes like raising the eligibility age, imposing a more meager inflation formula, and means testing are benefit cuts.
via twitter.
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Social Security is the most important retirement benefit for most American workers - it provides at least half of the income for 48 percent of retired couples, and for 71 percent of single seniors, according to the Social Security Administration. Also, Social Security benefits kept 22.1 million seniors, working-age adults and children out of poverty in 2015 according to an analysis of Census data released this week by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
via REUTERS.
And Congress should BOOST Social Security benefits for all working Americans.
After years of Republican-led debate over how to pare back Social Security’s rising costs, Democrats are flipping the script with an ambitious plan to expand the New Deal-era social insurance program while making gradual changes to keep it solvent for the rest of the century.
The Social Security 2100 Act, which was introduced this past week in the House and the Senate, represents a sea change after decades dominated by concern that aging baby boomers would bankrupt the government as they begin drawing benefits from Social Security and other entitlement programs.
via New York Times.
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Boosting — rather than cutting — Social Security makes good financial sense. The program provides more than one trillion dollars in fiscal stimulus to the nation’s economy, as seniors, workers with disabilities and survivors spend their benefits on goods and services in all fifty states.
Rep. Larson’s bill is a resounding rebuke to conservative proposals, because it maintains Social Security’s financial solvency for generations while giving seniors a bump in benefits. Among other things, the bill would:
Eighty three years ago today, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law a bold new program to provide America’s seniors with basic financial security. Social Security is income insurance based on a compact between the generations, and between retirees and the federal government. Working Americans pay into the system, and receive benefits when they retire or become disabled. That’s why we call it an earned benefit rather than an entitlement, which is exactly what President Roosevelt envisoned with the stroke of a pen and these words on August 14, 1935:
“We can never insure 100 per cent of the population against 100 per cent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family… against poverty-ridden old-age.” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 8/14/35
A new analysis by the National Institute on Retirement Security shows that #WomensRetirement income lags behind men’s. Our #EleanorsHope initiative is dedicated to helping close the gap between women & men when it comes to retirement savings and benefits. https://www.ncpssm.org/eleanors-hope/
