[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by manaboutown

IRMAA is theft, plain and simple. It is like based on my income I have to pay $50 for a $10 hamburger. Same burger, several times the price.

Originally Posted by Bill14564

Maybe it’s more like based on your income the govt will pay more of your health insurance premium. The less you make the more they pay and the lower your portion. The more you make the less they subsidize and the higher your portion.

The burger has always cost $75, the govt has been picking up a larger share so that you could still afford it.

Actually, it's more like paying $50 for a $10 hamburger so the government can play Robin Hood and give 4 other people who produced nothing a hamburger on your dime.

[justjim]

Originally Posted by Rainger99

I hope this will not happen. But if it does, it will create major problems.


Social Security Warning Issued as Retirees Could Face $18,000 Cut - Newsweek

Just ain’t going to happen…

[dewilson58]

Cuts for current retirees.................ain't going to happen.

Jus fear mongering.

[rsmurano]

SS has nothing to do with income tax. There should be no income related rules for receiving SS. If you don’t want to work when younger you don’t get any SS when you are older, this isn’t a giveaway plan.
SS was never intended to provide you enough money to live on, you have to take responsibility to provide your own income while in retirement, it’s called savings instead of spending every $ you make while working.
SS requirements cannot be changed for you once you are grandfathered into the plan, I hey can only change things for new enrollments.
The government has made it possible for decades for people to make it easier to save for retirement, it’s called the 401k option. Most people either don’t use this option or fund it poorly. You can take a horse to a water trough but you can’t force it to drink.
I paid the maximum I could into my 401k plan for decades, but I also invested 60% of my income into the stock market while working.
1 more thing, you aren’t going to get rich investing in the high cost low gains funds in these 401k plans. Every time I quit a job; I moved my 401k plans into my own IRA account so I had the freedom to invest all of this money anywhere I wanted, no restrictions.
No congress is going to make any unpopular SS changes so we will probably end up with lower SS benefits in 8 years

[MandoMan]

Originally Posted by JRcorvette

They need to let younger people put their money into a secure group of Mutual funds so that it will grow to a nice retirement amount. Anytime the government controls things it will not turn out well. They have raided the SS fund many times and used it for other pet projects. Eventually it will dry up. We have way too many government give away programs as it is right now.

Young people and everyone else working should be putting 15% of their income into Index Funds with minimum fees that go up as the market goes up. Yes, FIFTEEN %. This is IN ADDITION to what they pay into Social Security. Then they well probably be able to retire to The Villages someday. Meanwhile, workers and employers should each pay an additional 1% in Social Security taxes. This is such an easy fix, and it should have been done long ago. 1%! (It hasn’t been done because so many legislators don’t count on Social Security to get by when they retire, and they listen to businesses who say that 1% comes out of their profit.

I realize that investing 15% with every paycheck means young people and families may not be able to afford that new SUV or that big house or those restaurant dinners or those fancy vacations or a lot of things. But we’ve all read complaints here from people who live only on the Social Security payments they get. I feel bad for them. But if they had done what I recommend, they wouldn’t be in this situation today. My ex-wife and I scrimped and saved, and now we don’t have to worry. I see young people driving $50,000 to $90,000 trucks and SUVs and buying 3,000 sq ft houses and spending $100,000 on remodeling their kitchens and bathrooms, and I wonder how much they are saving for retirement. And putting it into CDs or savings accounts like my parents did won’t do it. My parents saved for decades but put the money into CDs and savings accounts, so the money they have in the accounts has grown, but always less than the inflation rate. Meanwhile, the money I put into mutual funds has quintupled. (But we still need mandatory social Security contributions.)

[Andyb]

Originally Posted by Rainger99

I hope this will not happen. But if it does, it will create major problems.


Social Security Warning Issued as Retirees Could Face $18,000 Cut - Newsweek

Well, the kicking the can down, the road has finally reached a dead end. No matter who was/is in office or which party is in control, Social Security is going to be insolvent by 2026. Millions of illegals they gave SS didn’t help. Many years of blame to go around. Major changes have to happen. Spending and corruption in government has to stop.

[Cliff Fr]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

only if nothing changes, and that time frame is way too long for nothing to change. .
just a repeat article when there is nothing else to write about, or someone is on vacation

I read the same article. The chart at the end has fine print that says the cut would apply to new retirees not existing ones. I do think that annual income that the SS tax applies too should be raised, it has not been raised in a long time.

[biker1]

No, not 2026. It will be partially insolvent (able to pay 80% of benefits) in 2033.

Originally Posted by Andyb

Well, the kicking the can down, the road has finally reached a dead end. No matter who was/is in office or which party is in control, Social Security is going to be insolvent by 2026. Millions of illegals they gave SS didn’t help. Many years of blame to go around. Major changes have to happen. Spending and corruption in government has to stop.

[biker1]

The annual income that is subject to SS tax gets raised every year (the cap). I suspect you mean that there should be no cap on the income that is subject to SS tax.

Originally Posted by Cliff Fr

I read the same article. The chart at the end has fine print that says the cut would apply to new retirees not existing ones. I do think that annual income that the SS tax applies too should be raised, it has not been raised in a long time.

[MikePgh]

If you subject all earned income to FICA and raise the tax by 1% (50/50 between employer and employee) the program would be solvent for a min of 50 years.
Per a prior SS study.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by Andyb

Well, the kicking the can down, the road has finally reached a dead end. No matter who was/is in office or which party is in control, Social Security is going to be insolvent by 2026. Millions of illegals they gave SS didn’t help. Many years of blame to go around. Major changes have to happen. Spending and corruption in government has to stop.

Illegals do not receive SS.

Illegals *pay* SS as employees so fewer illegals -> fewer employees -> less SS tax collected -> sooner the trust fund is depleted

[BrianL99]

On a positive note, today is the 60th anniversary of Medicare & Medicaid.

President Johnson signs Medicare into law | July 30, 1965 | HISTORY


Lyndon Johnson's Great Society initiatives probably did more to shape the daily lives of Americans, than any President in our lifetime.

[biker1]

No, everyone would see a reduction in benefits.

Originally Posted by Cliff Fr

I read the same article. The chart at the end has fine print that says the cut would apply to new retirees not existing ones. I do think that annual income that the SS tax applies too should be raised, it has not been raised in a long time.

[LoisR]

How does a possible 21% shortfall equate to $18k loss? Who is being paid $90k, or so, by SS?
Need to raise SS tax rates to those who earn more than $175k.

[nn0wheremann]

Originally Posted by biker1

Not exactly. SS taxes that had been collected, in excess of what was needed to pay benefits, were put in the general fund and spent to support Government operations. Treasury issued special T-Bills to the SSA for these excess funds. Essentially IOUs that the SSA can collect on in the future. This is the so-called Trust Fund and has a value of about $2T. These special T-Bills are now being cashed in to pay benefits as the current SS taxes are less than benefits paid. Essentially, the Government goes out and borrows money from world markets to pay off these special T-Bills as Government expenditures exceed Government revenue. This obviously continues to be a less than desirable situation. This will continue until about 2033 when the Trust Fund has been exhausted and SS taxes can only fund about 80% of benefits. This situation can and will most likely be fixed before 2033.

Including FICA “contributions “ in the federal budget was done by President Nixon and Wilbur Mills, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee back in 1972. This was called “dynamic finance”, and was a way to hide deficit spending until the benefits expended surpassed the revenue collected. All this could have been avoided with a minuscule FICA increase 25 years ago, but now the chickens have come home to roost.