Tag Archives: social security

Since many AB readers are either retired or about to be:“Looking solely at the trust fund that covers retirement and survivor benefits, Social Security will only be able to afford scheduled payments in full until 2033, roughly the same projection as last year. At that time, the fund’s reserves will be depleted, and continuing income will only cover 79% of benefits owed.”*snip*“As for Medicare, its hospital insurance trust fund, known as Medicare Part...

I touched on a commentary at another site where the commentary was about healthcare. The sites author was advocating for the increase of the Social Security cap only on high income earners. There is a ground swell for taxing the rich more, which is acceptable to most. When we look at this closely, there is an argument for some of this to occur. The level or percentage of total income exposed to Social Security taxes has decreased for the higher in...

There has always been a lot of misinformation and frank dishonesty surrounding Social Security. Here are three things that Social Security isn’t:1. A retirement investment. Social Security is insurance. It is not meant to be your sole source of income after retirement (although for many Americans, it basically is). Social Security is not a substitute for a pension or 401k, or for personal savings. But if some calamity befalls you and you lose your...

by Dale Coberly No. It’s not. Here is why. The argument for ending the tax on Social Security benefits seems to be that “it is a tax on a tax”, double taxing, and not fair. Even the good guys believe this. But they are wrong. Consider,  You pay income taxes on your ordinary income.  Then you may take your after tax income and put some of it in a savings account which earns interest.  Then you pay income tax on the interest you earn. ...

There are issues with Medicare which are easily fixed. Maggie Mahar was writing on healthcare at Angry Bear. I did the editing. I picked up on the issues with her on healthcare and have portrayed writers such as Merrill, Kip Sullivan, Charles Gaba, Steve Early, Susan Gordon, Andrew Sprung, etc. There are issues with healthcare such as cost. Then there are make believe issues such as Medicare being in trouble. The same is true of Social...

Angry Bears’ Social Security expert Dale Coberly emailed this to me about the same time it showed up in my inbox. Republicans again are trying to sell the public on the need to cut Social Security and Medicare Budgets for those over 65. Cutting them while keeping the Trump tax breaks which will result in a $2 trillion deficit by the time Reconciliation measures end in 2025. The cuts makes no sense as both programs are far more efficient and effect...

A repost of a Bruce Webb take on Social Security and what happens if the Trust Funds go to zero. This is from 2015 and as you know, not much has been done. In one respect, maybe nothing should be done as long as it does not become a major crisis. By that I mean, we should be sure our actions are not over-zealous in solution. Do enough to stabilize it for the future as Dale Coberly and Bruce Webb proposed with the Northwest Plan. The timely is now...

If nothing is done, the Social Security Trust Fund is currently projected to run out in about 2033. At that point, projected benefits will fall by about 20%.The Boston Globe has an opinion piece about the coming Social Security crisis/crunch. It talks about how Canada deals with the problem. I have a subscription and so don’t know if the link below is paywalled, but here are the nut grafs:“Mechanically it works as follows. Every three years, Canada’s...

Some schemes never see to go away on Saving Private Social Security when in reality Public Citizen Social Security still works, needs no major saving, would take little to fix it, and far short of MMT. Taken from a 2006 commentary on Angry Bear by “Admin” at the time. I was not here at the time and maybe one of the oldsters can offer up a name. As I read this, what Crapo and the rest of the hooligans are proposing is an exercise in accounting....

Gabriel Boric Is Struggling to Boost Chile’s Meager Pensions, Jacobin, Phineas Ruekert. Dale Coberly on Social Security: Not so long ago (2003) the Liars who want to destroy Social Security in America were bragging about the privatized pension system adopted by Chile.  Many of those liars commented on my posts on AB.  Here is an update. This is what Chile’s great privatized pension system looks like today. Jacobin’s Phineas Rueckert: Zuñiga is...