Social Security – Page 5

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Days after Obama lamented Democrats’ 2010 electoral “shellacking,” his commission released a plan to slash Social Security benefits and raise the program’s eligibility age. Economist Paul Krugman noted at the time that the commission also suggested using newly gained revenue to finance “sharp reductions in both the top marginal tax rate and in the corporate tax rate.”
The plan ultimately did not receive the fourteen commission votes it needed to move forward, and a few years later in 2012, the House voted down a version of the proposal. That didn’t stop the Obama-Biden administration’s push: right after winning reelection — and after cementing much of the George W. Bush tax cuts — they tried to limit cost-of-living increases for Social Security, to the applause of Republican lawmakers.
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Like Obama, Biden campaigned on a promise to protect Medicare and Social Security. But as we have reported, Biden is already affirming big Medicare premium increases and accelerating the privatization of that health care program. Biden also has not pushed to fulfill his promise to expand Social Security, even though there is new Democratic legislation that would do so.
And now with Graham’s comments, Republicans are banking on him becoming the old Joe Biden on Social Security if they win in November.
It’s not an insane political bet. After all, Biden for decades proposed cuts and freezes to Social Security and publicly boasted about it. Indeed, Biden spent most of his career depicting himself as an allegedly rare and courageous Democrat who was willing to push off his party’s base and tout austerity.

Author(s): David Sirota

Publication Date: 16 Jun 2022

Publication Site: Jacobin

Sanders’ Social Security Bill Would Extend Payroll Tax to Capital Gains for High Earners

June 20, 2022 Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/06/10/bernie-sanders-new-social-security-bill-would-extend-payroll-tax-to-capital-gains-for-high-earners/

Excerpt:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., introduced Thursday the Social Security Expansion Act (SSEA), which would, among other measures, boost benefits, adopt the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, or CPI-E, for benefit increases, and subject all income above $250,000 — including capital gains — to the Social Security payroll tax.
Dan Adcock, Director of Government Relations and Policy at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, told ThinkAdvisor Friday in an email that the DeFazio-Sanders bill, like the Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, introduced by Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., “both extend solvency and improve benefits.”
The Larson bill, however, “is consistent with President Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 per year,” Adcock said, while “the Sanders-DeFazio bill is not.”
A Sacred Trust adopts the consumer price index for the elderly as the basis of the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and applies the payroll tax to annual wages above $400,000.

Author(s): Melanie Waddell

Publication Date: 10 June 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

A Widening Gap in Life Expectancy Makes Raising Social Security’s Retirement Age a Particularly Bad Deal for Low-Wage Earners

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022 Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://sections.soa.org/publication/?m=58953&i=668685&view=articleBrowser&article_id=3731911&ver=html5

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Many recent studies find the life expectancy gap is growing. By how much depends on how and when it’s measured. In 2014, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculated that a 65-yearold man in the upper quintile (fifth) of life earnings could be expected to live more than three years longer than a similar man in the lowest quintile. By 2039, the difference would double to six years.
In a 2015 report, the National Academy of Sciences compared the 1930 and 1960 birth cohorts and found that life expectancy for the bottom quintile of men at age 50 decreased slightly to 26.1 years over the 30-year period. Meanwhile, life expectancy rose for men age 50 in higher-income quintiles. As shown in Figure 1, the life expectancy gap between the bottom (quintile 1) and top fifth of the income distribution widened from 5.1 to 12.7 years. In 2016, a Brookings study found, for men born in 1940, those in the lowest income decile at age 50 could expect to live to be about 76 years old compared with 88 years for the highest income decile. Another research team, led by Raj Chetty, found that disparity in longevity continued to increase over 2001–2014; the average gap between the bottom and top 1 percent was 14.6 years for men and 10.1 years for women.

Author(s): Karl Polzer

Publication Date: August 2020

Publication Site: In the Public Interest, SOA

As our entitlements crisis gets closer, a solution moved farther away

June 11, 2022June 13, 2022 Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/09/social-security-medicare-crisis-approaching/

Excerpt:

The annual Social Security trustees report is once again upon us, and this year it actually bears some good news: The projections give us an extra year before the trust fund is exhausted in 2035.
At least, this sounded like good news when I first heard it. Then I remembered that I have been writing about these trustees reports for more than 15 years. When I started, all these projections sounded comfortably far off — we had decades to fix the problem! Now we have 13 years. And in all that time, we have done nothing at all, except watch the date of insolvency advance.
In 2008, it was 2040, and the people likely to be worst affected — those who would be eligible to retire just as the trust fund was exhausted — were 35. Now, the people facing the most disruption are 54, much closer to retirement than to their college graduation.
In the meantime, the politics of fixing America’s old-age entitlements has gotten considerably worse.

Author(s): Megan McArdle

Publication Date: 9 June 2022

Publication Site: Washington Post

The state pension – a creaking centenarian

June 10, 2022June 10, 2022 Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://cpd180322.pensions-expert.com/

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Separate SPAs for men and women were introduced in 1940 — age 65 for men and 60 for women, with a decision to equalise the SPA for men and women trailed in the 1993 white paper ‘Equality in state pension age’. Now that the same age applies for both men and women, at 66, there is still huge controversy over the notice period and quality of information given to women over the age of 50 on the exact timetables for this change.
Demography has increasingly put the whole system under strain. Andrew Tully, technical director at Canada Life, warns: “By 2045, the number of people of pensionable age will grow to 15.2mn, an increase of 28 per cent on the level in 2020. The ‘oldest old’ cohort is also increasing, with the number of people aged 85 and over projected to almost double to 3.1mn by 2045.
“At the same time, the working age population will increase by much less — around 4.5 per cent up by the mid-2030s, but then remaining around that level by 2045. Meanwhile, we are seeing a decrease in the number of children, with those aged 0 to 15 projected to fall by nearly 9 per cent by mid-2030.”

Author(s): Stephanie Hawthorne

Publication Date: 18 March 2022

Publication Site: Pensions Expert

Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs

June 9, 2022June 9, 2022 Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html

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• The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which pays retirement and survivors benefits, will be able to pay scheduled benefits on a timely basis until 2034, one year later than reported last year. At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits.
• The Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund, which pays disability benefits, is no longer projected to be depleted within the 75-year projection period. By comparison, last year’s report projected that it would be able to pay scheduled benefits only until 2057.
• The OASI and DI funds are separate entities under law. The report also presents information that combines the reserves of these two funds in order to illustrate the actuarial status of the Social Security program as a whole. The hypothetical combined OASI and DI funds would be able to pay scheduled benefits on a timely basis until 2035, one year later than reported last year. At that time, the combined funds’ reserves will become depleted and continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 80 percent of scheduled benefits.
• The Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund, or Medicare Part A, which helps pay for services such as inpatient hospital care, will be able to pay scheduled benefits until 2028, two years later than reported last year. At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing total program income will be sufficient to pay 90 percent of total scheduled benefits.
• The Supplemental Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund is adequately financed into the indefinite future because current law provides financing from general revenues and beneficiary premiums each year to meet the next year’s expected costs. Due to these funding provisions and the rapid growth of its costs, SMI will place steadily increasing demands on both taxpayers and beneficiaries.
• For the sixth consecutive year, the Trustees are issuing a determination of projected excess general revenue Medicare funding, as is required by law whenever annual tax and premium revenues of the combined Medicare funds will be below 55 percent of projected combined annual outlays within the next 7 fiscal years. Under the law, two such consecutive determinations of projected excess general revenue consitute a “Medicare funding warning.” Under current law and the Trustees’ projections, such determinations and warnings will recur every year through the 75-year projection period.

Publication Date: accessed 9 June 2022

Publication Site: Social Security Administration

Action on Social Security 2100 Bill Coming ‘Very Soon’: Rep. Larson

June 6, 2022June 6, 2022 Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/05/23/action-on-social-security-2100-bill-coming-very-soon-rep-larson/

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The House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee plans to debate his Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust bill soon, Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., chairman of the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, told ThinkAdvisor in a recent email.
The legislation adopts the consumer price index for the elderly as the basis of the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and applies the payroll tax to annual wages above $400,000.
“We are in the process of working toward markup, which will be held hopefully very soon,” Larson said in the email.

Author(s): Melanie Waddell

Publication Date: 23 May 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Pension Withdrawals Drain Savings in Chile and Peru

June 5, 2022June 5, 2022 Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/pension-withdrawals-drain-savings-in-chile-peru-01-06-2022

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Peru, Chile and Bolivia have allowed early withdrawals from their funds as a source of relief for households and to support recoveries during the pandemic and the global price shock. But these have had negative financial and confidence ramifications, contributing to downgrades of Peru in 2021 and Chile in 2020. Longstanding private pension funds have been important supports for sovereign creditworthiness where they exist in Latin America.
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Peru’s Congress approved a sixth withdrawal from private pension funds in May. Prior rounds due to the pandemic led to withdrawals of USD17.8 billion or 8% of 2021 GDP. In Chile, a fourth withdrawal proposal failed in April 2022, but Chileans have already withdrawn about USD50 billion (16% of 2021 GDP) in 2020-2021. Bolivia allowed early withdrawals once in 2021 for more limited amounts (0.4% of 2021 GDP).

Publication Date: 1 June 2022

Publication Site: Fitch Ratings

9 Ways to Strengthen Social Security

March 2, 2022March 2, 2022 Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/info-2022/benefits-current-status-future-stability.html

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How did we get here? As long predicted, demographics explain a good deal: In a decade, the entirety of the boomer generation — some 70 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 — will have hit retirement age. As a result, the number of people receiving Social Security benefits come 2034 will be more than double the beneficiaries in 1985.
But what wasn’t known as accurately was how much longer those boomers would live. “From 1940 to 2019, life expectancies at age 65 have increased by about 6.5 years,” says Amy Kemp, chair of the Social Security Committee of the American Academy of Actuaries.
The impact: Many workers will be receiving benefits for a longer period of time. And those with higher incomes, which are generally those who receive higher benefit amounts, tend to live longer on average.

Author(s): John Waggoner

Publication Date: 1 March 2022

Publication Site: AARP