Do we need Social Security reform?

[Popeer]

Look at Greece: Roughly 2.7 million Greeks are receiving pension benefits out of a population of 11 million. This figure has been rising for years and is expected to keep climbing as the population ages.

Currently, 59.5 million Americans are receiving Social Security benefits [as of May] approximately 18% of the total population, including 39 million retired workers. This will keep climbing as we Baby Boomers retire, plus we're all living longer. And, as in Greece, the number of young workers available to feed the benefits system continues to decline. Lastly, Americans are notoriously lax in saving for their own retirement - 68 percent have no savings or inadequate savings.

 

[Op2]

Look at Greece: Roughly 2.7 million Greeks are receiving pension benefits out of a population of 11 million. This figure has been rising for years and is expected to keep climbing as the population ages.

Currently, 59.5 million Americans are receiving Social Security benefits [as of May] approximately 18% of the total population, including 39 million retired workers. This will keep climbing as we Baby Boomers retire, plus we're all living longer. And, as in Greece, the number of young workers available to feed the benefits system continues to decline. Lastly, Americans are notoriously lax in saving for their own retirement - 68 percent have no savings or inadequate savings.

Between people living longer and the baby boomers getting older, they'll have to do something, and I think it's just a matter of time until they do. Not drastic changes but just tweak some dials, raise the age a little, lessen the degree of benefits increases, etc. But one part of this that makes it easier for the US than Europe is that the US has a lot more immigration and the immigrants are typically young workers, thus our worker to SS recipient isn't as bad.

The SS recipients on disability kinda worries me because that has something like doubled in the last 15 or so years. It's not an aging population but rather somehow twice as many people not being able to work due to disability. Why should that happen? I don't know..

In Greece the retirement age was something like 57. That's just plain stupid.

 

[moe]

Between people living longer and the baby boomers getting older, they'll have to do something, and I think it's just a matter of time until they do. Not drastic changes but just tweak some dials, raise the age a little, lessen the degree of benefits increases, etc. But one part of this that makes it easier for the US than Europe is that the US has a lot more immigration and the immigrants are typically young workers, thus our worker to SS recipient isn't as bad.

The SS recipients on disability kinda worries me because that has something like doubled in the last 15 or so years. It's not an aging population but rather somehow twice as many people not being able to work due to disability. Why should that happen? I don't know..

In Greece the retirement age was something like 57. That's just plain stupid.

Imo, one source of new SSI recipients began when unemployment hit high numbers during this recent bad recession. As unemployment benefits ran out and jobs still couldn't be found for some, some folks applied for SSI if they thought that they would qualify for some reason.

 

[DvlDog4WVU]

Between people living longer and the baby boomers getting older, they'll have to do something, and I think it's just a matter of time until they do. Not drastic changes but just tweak some dials, raise the age a little, lessen the degree of benefits increases, etc. But one part of this that makes it easier for the US than Europe is that the US has a lot more immigration and the immigrants are typically young workers, thus our worker to SS recipient isn't as bad.

The SS recipients on disability kinda worries me because that has something like doubled in the last 15 or so years. It's not an aging population but rather somehow twice as many people not being able to work due to disability. Why should that happen? I don't know..

In Greece the retirement age was something like 57. That's just plain stupid.

Are you talking legal immigrants or illegal? The illegal immigrants are usually paid in cash under the table.

As I said the other day, the disability thing has been abused more and more. I think it was like a year or two ago, Obama had eased the requirements for disability which was reported to cause a significant uptick in persons on disability. I haven't checked the numbers though so I can't confirm it.

Raising retirement age makes some sense but it will also affect how businesses operate. Generally, your older workforce is also the highest paid. I know our company has recently restructured and most of the older folks were "retired/fired". They of course worked in enough younger strap hangers so the % didn't cause any age discrimination lawsuits. Looking at our forecasted AOP and NOP it was necessary otherwise it would have drug the whole company down. Those employees have been replaced with kids right out of school making half what the older crowd was making. It's caused some serious problems internally with the downgrade in skillsets and loss of tribal knowledge.

 

[WhiteTailEER]

raise the age a little

It's already to 67 for me now, (I'm not counting on SS) I'm not sure how much higher it can go and still actually have retirees.

 

[mneilmont]

Are you talking legal immigrants or illegal? The illegal immigrants are usually paid in cash under the table.

As I said the other day, the disability thing has been abused more and more. I think it was like a year or two ago, Obama had eased the requirements for disability which was reported to cause a significant uptick in persons on disability. I haven't checked the numbers though so I can't confirm it.

Raising retirement age makes some sense but it will also affect how businesses operate. Generally, your older workforce is also the highest paid. I know our company has recently restructured and most of the older folks were "retired/fired". They of course worked in enough younger strap hangers so the % didn't cause any age discrimination lawsuits. Looking at our forecasted AOP and NOP it was necessary otherwise it would have drug the whole company down. Those employees have been replaced with kids right out of school making half what the older crowd was making. It's caused some serious problems internally with the downgrade in skillsets and loss of tribal knowledge.

No secret that something has to be done, but what? Rational people realize that a pay as you go system is doomed to failure when the class of recipients grows so greatly as we are seeing in the expanded life expectancy. The system was never funded appropriately from the git go.

I suspect a solution, that I oppose, will bee instituted. Remove cap on collection and don't pay those who don't have an economic need. That no longer fits the forced retirement provision and just robs people of their money for which they will receive zero benefit.

 

[Op2]

Are you talking legal immigrants or illegal? The illegal immigrants are usually paid in cash under the table.

As I said the other day, the disability thing has been abused more and more. I think it was like a year or two ago, Obama had eased the requirements for disability which was reported to cause a significant uptick in persons on disability. I haven't checked the numbers though so I can't confirm it.

Raising retirement age makes some sense but it will also affect how businesses operate. Generally, your older workforce is also the highest paid. I know our company has recently restructured and most of the older folks were "retired/fired". They of course worked in enough younger strap hangers so the % didn't cause any age discrimination lawsuits. Looking at our forecasted AOP and NOP it was necessary otherwise it would have drug the whole company down. Those employees have been replaced with kids right out of school making half what the older crowd was making. It's caused some serious problems internally with the downgrade in skillsets and loss of tribal knowledge.

The US has a lot of both legal and illegal compared to European countries. Of course the illegals don't pay into Social Security but the legal ones do and the illegal ones may become legal ones eventually and start paying into it.

Look at the chart about 1/5th of the way down. It has the ratio of people over 65 to people 25-64, and it has it for 2000, 2010 and projected for 2035. Compared to other wealthy countries the US is doing well and I assume that's because of immigration.

http://www.economist.com/news/brief...change-global-economy-they-will-not-all-do-so

 

[EEResistable]

The illegals need to be made legal and paying into the system.

 

[Op2]

No secret that something has to be done, but what? Rational people realize that a pay as you go system is doomed to failure when the class of recipients grows so greatly as we are seeing in the expanded life expectancy. The system was never funded appropriately from the git go.

I suspect a solution, that I oppose, will bee instituted. Remove cap on collection and don't pay those who don't have an economic need. That no longer fits the forced retirement provision and just robs people of their money for which they will receive zero benefit.

I don't think they'll remove the cap on collection completely. But they'll probably raise it a bit. And raise the age a bit. And do a bunch of things a bit and it'll add up to be enough. From what I've read Social Security isn't really that bad off if a few tweaks are done and it's paying for Medicare that is the big problem in the long term since health care costs keep rising.

 

[mneilmont]

I don't think they'll remove the cap on collection completely. But they'll probably raise it a bit. And raise the age a bit. And do a bunch of things a bit and it'll add up to be enough. From what I've read Social Security isn't really that bad off if a few tweaks are done and it's paying for Medicare that is the big problem in the long term since health care costs keep rising.

It has been some time since I looked, but SS will be broke in a few years. We already have a cash-flow problem. There are paper transactions within the government that transferred excess collections of SS to the general fund. That sounds OK in theory, but the GF has an $18+ trillion deficit. No cash to reimburse SS. And other problems.

 

[dave]

Are you talking legal immigrants or illegal? The illegal immigrants are usually paid in cash under the table.

As I said the other day, the disability thing has been abused more and more. I think it was like a year or two ago, Obama had eased the requirements for disability which was reported to cause a significant uptick in persons on disability. I haven't checked the numbers though so I can't confirm it.

Raising retirement age makes some sense but it will also affect how businesses operate. Generally, your older workforce is also the highest paid. I know our company has recently restructured and most of the older folks were "retired/fired". They of course worked in enough younger strap hangers so the % didn't cause any age discrimination lawsuits. Looking at our forecasted AOP and NOP it was necessary otherwise it would have drug the whole company down. Those employees have been replaced with kids right out of school making half what the older crowd was making. It's caused some serious problems internally with the downgrade in skillsets and loss of tribal knowledge.

I really don't know how hard it is to get on SS Disability illegitimately, and I am sure some do, but I do know that if you are legitimately disabled it is still a royal pain in the ass to get the benefits and then you have to reapply seemingly every year and go through the process. I am not suggesting that it is harder than working a job but it is a tireless trail of paperwork and doctor visits. I assume that it is another case of the process being more difficult for the honest people because of the actions of dishonest people.