Each year, in early spring, the trustees of Social Security release their report. As required by law, the trustees present what can be described as their best guesses for three different scenarios for the future of Social Security.

In their annual report for 2004, the trustees project that Social Security will take in more in income than it will pay out in expenditures until 2018. Between 2018 and 2028, interest income earned on the trust fund assets is forecasted to make up the difference between income and expenditures. After 2028, Social Security is expected to draw down its trust funds to pay for the expenditures that are not covered by income. Finally, in 2042, the trust fund assets are expected to be gone, and income is projected to be less than expenditures.



However, the trustees project that Social Security will still be able to pay 74% of its promised benefits from 2042 to 2078, and those benefits would still be higher in real (inflation-adjusted) terms than retirees are being paid today.

Social Security is not going broke. The trustees instead project a financing shortfall that may happen almost 40 years from now.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office doesn't project a shortfall until 2052.  The trustees' projections are based on pessimistic assumptions. Real growth is expected to fall to between 1.7% and 1.8% over the long-run, which has never been the case for an extended period of time during the post-war years. Similarly, the trustees assume that in the long-run the economy will settle on an average productivity growth rate of 1.6%, which is again too low by historical standards. Higher productivity and consequently faster real wage growth -- which have both historically been about 2.0%—would be more realistic and improve Social Security's finances.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR03/II_project.html

---

That's right, broke in 2042, but that's just an estimate.

I'll retire in 2044 if the retirement age doesn't change which I expect it to so I guess I'm screwed huh? SS is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. If I wasn't forced to pay SS, I would retire a millionare even if I just kept that money in a low interest savings account. Do you think I'll ever get my million back out, not a chance.

---

> Each year, in early spring, the trustees of Social Security release their
> report. As required by law, the trustees present what can be described as
> their best guesses for three different scenarios for the future of Social
> Security.
>
> In their annual report for 2004, the trustees project that Social Security
> will take in more in income than it will pay out in expenditures until 2018.
> Between 2018 and 2028, interest income earned on the trust fund assets is
> forecasted to make up the difference between income and expenditures. After
> 2028, Social Security is expected to draw down its trust funds to pay for the
> expenditures that are not covered by income. Finally, in 2042, the trust fund
> assets are expected to be gone, and income is projected to be less than
> expenditures.
>


I believe that you make an unwarrented assumption about the status of the trust fund. There is no actual 'cash' in it. Congress has, for decades, raided the trust fund to reduce the size of the deficit. They have removed the 'cash' and replaced it with govt. securities... effectively IOUs. They will have to either raise SS tax to keep it in the black, or they will have to raise Income Tax (and/or other taxes) to be able to redeem those securities to get the cash to pay the benefits. Don't believe me? From both sides of the aisle:

Speaker Newt Gingrich
Nationally televised address
April 7, 1995

In fact, the money the government has supposedly been putting aside from the Baby Boomers' Social Security taxes is not there. The government has been borrowing the money to pay for the budget deficit. The Social Security Trust Fund is simply IOUs from the U.S. Treasury.... [Social Security] would be fine if the government would stop borrowing the money.

Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-South Carolina)
Congressional Record
April 24, 1991

The truth is that the Social Security Trust Fund has already been stripped bare. There is no trust and no fund.

It is a lot like the S&Ls. The savings and loans had a lot of real estate on the books, a lot of property, a lot of shopping centers, a lot of deposits, and everything else, until you looked inside and found out there was nothing there. The assets were mostly on paper.... Meanwhile, the Social Security cupboard is bare.

Also various major media has said much the same, such as:

David Brinkley
This Week with David Brinkley (ABC News)
August 16, 1992
[To President Bush:] You mentioned Social Security. The trust fund consists, increasingly, of IOU's sent over by Congress, which keeps spending the money.


-----------

Without significant tax increases, SS as it is now is effectively dead here in a few years (as soon as expenditures outstrip income). And, what are the chances of the Govt. conducting any meaningful reform of SS (long known as the '3rd rail' of USA politics, due to the ever-zealous influence of the AARP - the largest lobby organization in this country)? Somewhere between zip, zilch, and nada.

What are the three possible ways to 'fix' SS? Well, you can either:

1. Jack up taxes. (Gonna anger the source of income - those paying SS tax, and also runs a big risk of screwing the economy).

2. Cut benefits. (WILL anger those benefiting from SS.. And let us not forget perhaps the most important activity of AARP members... they VOTE.)

or

3. Privatize at least PART of SS. But for this to work effectively, even WITH the 'miracle' of compound interest, it takes TIME. If we are going to do ANY privatization... EVER... we need to do it ASAP, before SS 'hits the skids'.

---

https://youtu.be/iY57ErBkFFE

#Texit

Don't blame me, I voted for Johnson(L) in 2016.

Truth is dangerous... especially when it challenges those in power.

I said it in another thread, Congress has been raiding the SS kitty for some time. The system itself is sound. As I stated earlier, Congress has been playing a shell game. Their pensions, which in and of themselves will make them millionaires, will never be effected. They don't pay SS taxes. Go figure.

---

Account frozen...

> I said it in another thread, Congress has been raiding the SS kitty for some
> time. The system itself is sound. As I stated earlier, Congress has been
> playing a shell game. Their pensions, which in and of themselves will make
> them millionaires, will never be effected. They don't pay SS taxes. Go
> figure.
>
>
>

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

---

https://youtu.be/iY57ErBkFFE

#Texit

Don't blame me, I voted for Johnson(L) in 2016.

Truth is dangerous... especially when it challenges those in power.

Dude, your whole country is going broke.

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

7.6 Trillion dollars.

From the link:"The estimated population of the United States is 295,360,504
so each citizen's share of this debt is $25,775.82."

nebby,

the estimate that you cite just keeps extending itself, like this, ...it was gonna go bust in1960, then 70 then...

of late it, it was 2018, then 2028, now the best estimate that tracks realistic numbers put's that date clear out to something like 2052.

In other words, there is a trend line there, it's graphed out in the site I posted, from information right from the trustees.

and nebby, you evidently didn't read my post very closely because even if we did nothing at all, you would still receive 74% of the normal benefits from 2042 to 2078, and those benefits would still be higher in real (inflation-adjusted) terms than retirees are being paid today.

So even if we did nothing at all, nothing, not even the small little adjustments which might be necessary, Social Security funds are still more than adequate to provide 'guaranteed insurance benefits' until 2078.

You take the largest portion of revenue out of the program, like Bush suggests, and make people put it in the market, and you've trashed all the projections and your 'private' investment is at the mercy of the market. If you retire during a down market, too bad. If you retire when the market happens to be on an up cycle, you probably won't realize what you get in the program now if we do nothing at all.

People have run those numbers, Social Security itself has done the comparison, and they always lowball their own estimates.





Now, kong,

The trust fund is nontradable gov. bonds, and only accounts for about a third of the bonds we have out there, we aren't gooing to default on those bonds. They are every bit as redeemable as cash, we still sell billions of those bonds monthly. To say that they 'aren't there' is a word game. It's the same as saying there is no money, because it's all just printed up. It's specious, it's a scare tactic and both sides use scare tactics for their own aims. It makes no difference in the veracity of the value and redeemability of those bonds, when either political party repeats a specious phrase. (I'll refrain from asking you what you know of partisan politics here and just assume you let your thoughts run away from you for a second there)

90210,

Our falling dollar and our trade imbalances are indeed real concerns. Concerns that ought to be addressed. But our administration right now has other ideas. They see this huge asset base of Social Security and they want to dismantle it, so they can force people to 'lend' it to their buddies in the markets. So after the fund brokers get their share off the top, about 3% in fixed fees, the rest will be gambled away in Enron like market scams. What people don't realize is, they can't 'beat the market', their window is not long enough to guarantee they won't be caught by the 15 and 30 year 'adjustments' to the market. They won't look at the big rising line on the chart long enough to see all those little up and dowm squiggles in the line. They won't see that the time span of that big rising line is 100 years and the little squiggles more closely resemble the time span they will be actually dealing in.

Many other countries have tried the same 'privatization' scheme, England is a good example, and there are many more. They have all been disasters.

People are going to buy the lie, lose the guaranteed insurance payout they have now, for a chance at the promised golden ring.

They're being scammed.... like they've been scammed before....

---

SOCIAL SECURITY PROJECTIONS....When the Social Security trustees project the future, they actually make three projections: pessimistic, optimistic, and intermediate. The intermediate one gets all the press, but which one has historically turned out to be most accurate?

David Langer, an independent actuary who made a study of Social Security's previous projections compared with the actual results in 2003, thinks the ''optimistic'' case is its most accurate. Over a recent 10-year span, the trustees' intermediate guesses turned out to be quite pessimistic. Its optimistic guesses were dead on, and its pessimistic case — sort of a doomsday situation — was wildly inaccurate.

In the "optimistic" case, of course, Social Security is solvent forever even with no changes .

More generally, Lowenstein's piece is excellent reading. It includes lucid explanations of most of Social Security's most critical issues, some very good historical information about the program, and a nice discussion of actuarial issues It's an outstanding primer and well worth reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/magazine/16SOCIAL.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1105906703-q3vXLPFXujICqd0RcVRZAw&pagewanted=all&position=

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR03/II_project.html#wp105057

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_SS_Projections.gif

Please do the minimal reading it takes to gain a basic grasp of what's not just made up stuff to scare people about Social Security.

Social Security should be strengthened, should be protected, it's the envy of all the other governments as far as what a successful government retirement/disability program should be.

And it won't take much to strengthen it, if we just raise the cap on payroll taxes we can bring in an amazing amount of revenue. That cap stands at 90 grand. That means that all of you who make less than 90 grand, pay payroll tax on all your earnings..... those that make more than 90 grand, only pay on their first 90 grand worth. Fair deal? Suppose if we really looked at it, we couldn't level that field a little?

I've much more info, many more links, I'm interested in getting some countering material out there before we allow a manufactured 'crisis' to cause a real crisis later.

---

"Social Security is not going broke."
Ha!

---

> nebby,
>
> the estimate that you cite just keeps extending itself, like this, ...it was
> gonna go bust in1960, then 70 then...
>

It keeps extending itself because they have to keep increasing the FICA maximum cap for the ss taxes. Bandages.

> you would still receive 74% of the normal benefits from 2042 to 2078

Your even saying it's broken when the benefits need to be cut to 74%.

---

Red Bull Air Racing

Gas price by zip at Seti

I know nothing about the US system but here in the UK many people have the notion that their social security payments (as portions of their wages taken) is some how being saved up for their future. In reality they are actually paying for the pensions of the current recipients.

If that is true in the US also then no comparison can be made between future savings for general benefits and future expectations for pensions as there are no savings as such... just predictions that have the same validity as any ecconomic forcast for a country..

In fact it would probably be safer to look at future general ecconomic trends as a base figure to the security possibility of its social welfare system than some secondary figures.

It will also of course be dependant on whether those in power in the next 20 years or so support the very concept of social welfare to start with.

cRunchy

richard,

That's cherry picking your complaints and ignoring where some of the answers to your complaints have already been addressed.

No one said Social Security was an inanimate system, it's a dynamic system. Adjustments are made to account for changes in the myriad of controlling factors which bear on total benefit payouts.

I already explained that if we did nothing at all, you would realize in real dollars, greater benefits than todays retirees. As I already stated, Bush's plan does not strengthen or protect what you have now..... doesn't even address it.

Since the projections which show that Social Security will, in fact, not go 'bankrupt,' will not disappear, will most probably continue on in fine shape, into the foreseeable future, are based on, historically unheard of, low economic growth factors, it's likely that whatever adjustments that really do need to be made as time goes by will be very minimal if not unnecessary.

Any investment vehicle has to be adjusted for changing circumstance. The population base is not static, the increased tax changes were last instituted when it became obvious that the boomer generation would cause an increase of retirees becoming eligible at the same time. Congress made a small increase in taxes and built a cushion. That cushion will draw down as expected. In the years immediately after the boomers retire, the number of eligible retirees will drop drastically. Birth rates are not constant.

So what will you call it when the 'bandage' (as you refer to adjustments), is no longer needed. Will your offspring be complaining about the increased base paying into their pool.

It's insurance, it's collectively paid and guaranteed to be a benefit to guard against total financial destitution in old age or disability.

Bush tries to sell his 'crisis' lies when there is no crisis, his plan to dismantle your pension accounts and force you into the market will result in true crisis.

crunchy,

my guess is your 'notions' about your own system are as misconstrued as the 'notions' most Americans have about our own system. If you had bothered to read the info I supplied, you would know that the projections do forecast productivity and wage trends in order to reflect real world expectations... Here's a llttle more info on your system, it's a good lesson for Americans too, since Bush is suggesting what your country has aready discovered is a bad idea.


I think it was 1979 that Britain instituted a partial privatization option into their retirement program. That proved to be a mistake.

Since then, the nation’s basic pension, which is paid for out of tax receipts, has shrunk dramatically. The United Kingdom has the stingiest state pension program of any G8 nation, and there is growing consensus that reform is needed. And ironically enough, considering that America is on the verge of copying Britain’s mistake, most experts in Britain seek reform in the direction of a more generous, and simpler, basic state pension, ....one similar in design, in other words, to America’s original Social Security program. ...

Britain’s experiment with substituting private savings accounts for a portion of state benefits has been a failure. A shorthand explanation for what has gone wrong is that the costs and risks of running private investment accounts outweigh the value of the returns they are likely to earn. On average, fees and charges can reduce pension lump sums by up to 30 percent on retirement. The nation’s savings industry, which sells those private accounts, has already acknowledged this.

Which brings us to irony No. 2: Just as the United States prepares to funnel untold billions to its private sector for the management of private accounts, back in 2002, many U.K. insurance companies, mindful of tough new rules in the U.K. against giving bad advice, began to write to their customers urging them to consider abandoning their private savings and returning to the state pension system -- something hundreds of thousands of Britons have done already.

---

Top GOoPer says Bush's plan is dead

Wed Jan 19th, 2005 at 08:26:39 PST
This is no reason to let our guard down, but it should allow for some cautious optimism:

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) predicted yesterday that partisan warfare over Social Security will quickly render President Bush's plan "a dead horse" and called on Congress to undertake a broader review of the problems of an aging nation.

Thomas, one of Capitol Hill's most powerful figures on tax policy, is the highest-ranking House Republican official to cast doubt on the president's plan for creating individual investment accounts. He said that as an alternative, he will consider changes such as replacing the payroll tax as Social Security's financing mechanism and adding a savings plan for long-term or chronic care as "an augmentation to Social Security payments."


The President's plan is a `dead horse' not because of partisan politics but because it is a privatization plan based on massive benefit cuts, risky Wall Street accounts and $2 trillion in new debt. It will undermine Social Security at a time when we should be looking to strengthen the program and help Americans save.

---

> crunchy,

> my guess is your 'notions' about your own system are as misconstrued as the
> 'notions' most Americans have about our own system.

As to government social security (as opposed to people making their own provisions)I imagine I am fairly well aware given the nature of the cradle to death notion which the majority of Brits experience to some degree.

It does not change the fact that what people pay today does not get invested as such in their future above that of investing in todays recipients.

> If you had BOTHERED to
> read the info I supplied,

Fair comment :)

> Here's a llttle more info on your system, Now fair comment as I am
>...it's a good lesson for Americans
> too, since Bush is suggesting what your country has aready discovered is a bad
> idea.

> I think it was 1979 that Britain instituted a partial privatization option
> into their retirement program. That proved to be a mistake.

1979 saw the election of a particularly perocial form of conservatism built upon a somewhat pre 60s backlash in middle england.

It was a period of anti left wing action aimed at undercutting the mass desire for better wages and making bussiness more profitable.

It also saw the privitisation (or the beginnings) of electricity, gas, water etc... where thousands of working class people were con'ed into the idea that they could buy a part of what they already owned and either become rich or have greater control in their ecconomy. Doubt 99% of those people now would think it was such a great idea now.

The problem with this form of privitisation is that it NEVER works. There will always be sections of any industry or service that will require subsidy.

The UK Post Office is a case in point. My father a staunch conservative small bussiness man once moaned to me that unlike in his day (that old chestnut) the post office no longer delivered post on time.

I had remind him that that was nothing to do with the present government and actually went back to those halcian days that he waxed lyrical about and was the fault of the very government (conservative 1979) who had striped the country's public industries of its silver and sold it to their mates.

The post office as it stands today no longer has the money making aspects that once supported the less money making facets like post offices in rural areas.

My own area of work saw the destruction at the same time of certain old laws (in my case the 1944 Butler Education Act) which enabled local councils to gradually put less money into the services I worked in.

The shift of 1979 was a much larger move than simply being trial and error policy. It was a cultural shift to some part driven by a desire to attack notions of solidarity in the UK.

Every government brings flavours but in terms of what was trying to be achieved in the UK at that time by that government I would say it was pretty successful...

It was returning power and wealth to the pre-war middle section of our society and attempting to boost their ecconomic ability.

Now I'm not pro right (or left) wing but out of that period came a certain amount of breaking with the older monolithic traditions that may have helped Britain fair a little better.

At present I would say the life style of the lower end of society here is slightly better though some of that is subsidised by technology and generally more and cheaper goods.

> Since then, the nation’s basic pension, which is paid for out of tax
> receipts, has shrunk dramatically. The United Kingdom has the stingiest state
> pension program of any G8 nation, and there is growing consensus that reform
> is needed.

My mother in Germany has lesser benefits even though she gets some state aid. She does not get free medication for example.

> Britain’s experiment with substituting private savings accounts for a portion
> of state benefits has been a failure. A shorthand explanation for what has
> gone wrong is that the costs and risks of running private investment accounts
> outweigh the value of the returns they are likely to earn. On average, fees
> and charges can reduce pension lump sums by up to 30 percent on retirement.
> The nation’s savings industry, which sells those private accounts, has already
> acknowledged this.

There has been a lot of scams over the years also and a lot of people burnt. It makes absolute sense for any healthy ecconomy to support its aged.. The mistakes made by the right of 1979 were less mistakes though and more highway robbery.

Its a cycle I suspect we shall see again and again. Allow the nation to get fat and then plunder its wealth.

> Which brings us to irony No. 2: Just as the United States prepares to funnel
> untold billions to its private sector for the management of private accounts,
> back in 2002, many U.K. insurance companies, mindful of tough new rules in the
> U.K. against giving bad advice, began to write to their customers urging them
> to consider abandoning their private savings and returning to the state
> pension system -- something hundreds of thousands of Britons have done
> already.

As said we are doing this also because of the scams pulled by many companies and the hidden losses that ended in the destruction of that conservative 'dream' of the 80s...

At the end of the day figures are figures and I suspect that whether we have a stable social security tommorow will depend on ecconomics of the future as you say.

One interesting twist though is that in Britain they often run TV adverts as they have underspent the social security pot due to unclaimed benefits that people have a right to.

It would be interesting to hear what a new non-disabled pensioner with fully paid stamp (dues) would recieve? (Lets say they pay rent, local rates (water etc..), regular medication (Flu Jabs, dental, glasses..) in the USA (or even other Euro countries.).

In the UK they would get something like £70 + rent + council tax (local rates, fire dept), free medication, dental, optic, orthopedic etc... Free busspass.


cRunchy

wonderful post crunchy,

Although the scope of your post went far beyond just social security or government pensions, all in all, you've provided food for thought that's pertinent to this argument.

thanks...

Maybe some of these other yanks here will wake up.... it's strange to me that they can't see how this argument about a manufactured crisis, goes hand in glove with the conservative movement away from conservatism and into some kind of morphed psuedo-fascism here. It's all part of a class war, that people may not see until it's too late.

I'll get you some figures about what benefits are here, though comparisons to your plan would be very difficult, due to the larger differences in scales of economy, and population base, it would be interesting to look at it.

---

"It's a badly, badly flawed plan," Robert Rubin, said the former secretary of the treasury and current Citigroup director. "From a fiscal point of view it's horrendous. It adds to deficits and federal debt in very large numbers until 2060." He calculates that the transition costs of Bush's plan for the first 10 years will be at least $2 trillion, and $4.5 trillion for the second 10 years. The exploding deficit would have an "adverse effect on interest rates, an adverse effect on consumption and housing prices, reduce productivity and growth, and crowd out debt capital to the private sector. Markets could begin to lose confidence in fiscal policy. The soundness of social security will be worse".

Rubin adds that the stock market is hardly a sure bet. "You are not making social security more secure by subjecting people's retirement to equity risk.

Even private-accounts-meister Newt Gingrich bagging on the crisis claim? "The combination of higher birth rates and more immigration makes the United States the healthiest of developed nations. This is not a crisis," says the former Speaker.

---

I think 'Social Security is/is not going broke' is not caused by 'the economy, stupid' but by our obnoxious healthness;-)
At the time they were designed, the average time of death was much lower then now. And we cure every plague now at huge costs.
This new facts call for a re-adjustment of the system, not the total dumping of it. At least if you believe in some kind of 'social responsibility' by a society.
Privatisation is the wrong way under this presumption, it just legalized egoism.
A society is to be judged by it's behaviour to the poorest, and giving away to the 'have-lots' from the 'have-nots' is imho a membership card to an 'axis of evil'.

---

Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

The bottom line is Social Security is welfare for old people,and like ALL forms of social aid, it's being abused, not by the rich, but by the LAZY.

In this case, those who DID NOT prepare for their "golden years"

1) Social Security was never meant to be your sole or a permanent source of income. It's supposed to be a TEMPORARY solution, like Food Stamps and Government Housing, for those who have stumbled, but are trying to get back on their feet, or very close to death. 65 in 1935 was OOOLLLDDD!!!

2) It was never meant for folks living to be 100+ years of age (drawing SS for nearly 40 years). An unforseen drawback to improved medical care. Who would have guessed in 1935 (FDR signs Social Security Act) that the AVERAGE life span would more than double?

3) Social Security IS going broke. There are more people over 50 on Social Security than folks under 30 with jobs, and in case you have not noticed, the gap is getting wider. What happens to YOUR bank account if you spend more than you put in? However, as any business owner can tell you, it's cheaper to keep your doors open and receive a little income,then to close your doors and shut off your income completely......so we still have Social Security.

.

---

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Unless you are disabled, you can not draw on social security until you are 62 and then at 75% of what you would draw if you wait until 65. An age adjustment and a small increase to the limit on taxable income would solve the problem, but the rich don't want to pay more, so that won't happen. After the great depression, the republicans lost control of congress. They fought tooth and nail against FDRs programs to put Americans back to work. Namely the WPA, the CCC, and Social Security. They were social programs and republicans have never met a social program that they liked. Investment houses have wanted, ever since social security started, to get their hands on the money. This is the main reason for the changes that Bush is trying make, not to save social security, but to phase it out and help the rich make more money by getting more people to invest. This will also bring the Con Artists out in droves offering all kinds of investments designed to part you from your retirement. Remember "A fool and his money are soon parted", con artists depend on that.

---

> The bottom line is Social Security is welfare for old people,and like ALL
> forms of social aid, it's being abused, not by the rich, but by the LAZY.
>
> In this case, those who DID NOT prepare for their "golden years"

Is this a universal statement?

Any worker by law in the UK has to put away through tax and National Inssurance. How is that lazy?

The majority in our societies do not earn the figures that the government tell us they do and oft can not afford to put money away though I do agree that those that can should if not only for those extras that make basic life more enjoyable.

The calling people "lazy" aspect is a swallowing of the general negativisms against people who are poorer and those without a job. The state needs a pool of mobile unemployed to fill in the gaps in the ecconomy.

> 1) Social Security was never meant to be your sole or a permanent source of
> income. It's supposed to be a TEMPORARY solution, like Food Stamps and
> Government Housing, for those who have stumbled, but are trying to get back on
> their feet, or very close to death. 65 in 1935 was OOOLLLDDD!!!

Most longevity is attributed to clean water, good sanitation, immunisation (or awareness of communicability and some solution to) and a range of foods not by individual medication which are in themselves expensive.

Take a look at the success ancient societies have had with longevity.

We could say we are all 'lazy' as labour is subsidised by tech advancement and resources and can not be attributed equally.

Your 1 hours worth of work in the factory will buy you 2 gallons of petrol. That very same amount of petrol will take you 60 miles. That very 60 miles would take you 12 hours to walk as opposed to the 2 hours worth of actual labour.

All of our work only amounts to anything for us if that subsidy remains true for our children and grand children as 'they' will be paying our pensions not 'us'.

The labour subsidy also brings greater real time tax income for investment in future planning... for example old age services.

If the trend continues then those earning today are actually produce in subsidised abundance. That here at least should mean our children's payment capacity should be higher.

> 2) It was never meant for folks living to be 100+ years of age (drawing SS for
> nearly 40 years). An unforseen drawback to improved medical care. Who would
> have guessed in 1935 (FDR signs Social Security Act) that the AVERAGE life
> span would more than double?

Same here in the UK but we have a generally stable birth rate and the average lifespan of a man is around 70 not 100. That is only 5 years as far as my maths go.

If you look at the figures related to unemployment payments relative to the local ecconomy it is quite revealing in terms of the 'actual' resources consumed.

If you are unemployed you pay far more back into the local ecconomy relative to your spending power. Unrecoverable resources such as food, clothes, heating, rent are taxable items and also are dissadvantaged by higher local shop prices. At the end of the day nearly "all" of the SS income is spent back into the local ecconomy or go via tax.

I should imagine that no more than 20% of the amount paid to someone needing SS is actually lost so the cost to the ecconomy at least is far less than people assume. Rent of £50 for example will yield £45 profit for the long term landlord and tax on that will amount to around %30 in the long term.

The state may pay for rent on SS but it actually pays the landlord not the benefit claimant and then claims 30% tax back.

Its a false arguement that someone who recieves £70 benefits (SS) consumes the lot. A far guess is that they actually consume outright about £15 of that the rest being returned in one way or another.



cRunchy