Expand Social Security

 Posted by at 12:33 am  Politics
Jan 012014
 

Ever since Social Security passed under FDR, Republicans have been trying to change it.  For them it’s a painful thing to see the money folks have paid in over the years returned to the beneficiaries.  Republicans want it to become a vehicle to transfer that wealth from the beneficiaries to billionaires and corporate criminals.  Here is an article from a wonderful progressive.  I’ll say who at the end.

0101socialsecurityFor a generation now, working families have been squeezed by stagnant wages and rising costs for housing, health care, and college. Even as families have cut back on expenses for things like food, clothing, furniture, and appliances, it hasn’t always been enough; many have been forced to take on more and more debt just to pay for necessities.

One major consequence of these increasing pressures on working people is that the dream of a secure retirement is slowly slipping away. Families haven’t been able to save as much as they used to, and only 18 percent of private-sector workers have defined benefit pensions today compared with 35 percent two decades ago. Forty-four million workers have no workplace retirement savings plan…

…Social Security isn’t the answer to all of our retirement problems. We need to find ways to tackle the financial squeeze that is crushing our families. We need to help families start saving again. We need to make sure that more workers have access to better pensions. But in the meantime, so long as these problems continue to exist and so long as we are in the midst of a real and growing retirement crisis — a crisis that is shaking the foundations of what was once a vibrant and secure middle class — the absolute last thing we should be doing is talking about cutting back on Social Security. The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 – at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors — is allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch.

The decisions we make about Social Security benefits are not just about math. At their core, these decisions are about our values. I believe we must honor our promises, make good on a system that millions of people paid into faithfully throughout their working years, and support the right of every person to retire with dignity and that means protecting and expanding Social Security.

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I can assure you that my Social Security benefits have not kept pace with what it costs me to live, so I fully agree with this author.  And who is it with such expertise?  She’s also an expert on Bought Bitch Mitch!!

Warren-McConnell

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  22 Responses to “Expand Social Security”

  1. She is a very wise woman. My Social Security payments have not kept pace with living expenses either.

  2. Good for Senator Warren and all the other intelligent people supporting her and her allies – it is only common sense one might have thought – if people are well fed and well housed they are healthier and happier and that can only benefit the country too in so many ways.  One might have hoped that even the Right Wing might have worked that out – but no, hatred rules their lives and ever will it seems.

     

  3. Instead of using any kind of general inflation index for Social Security, there ought to be a special index based on the kinds of things seniors are most likely to need – housing, food, health care and the like.  The current index could almost have been designed to kill seniors and the disabled.  Chained CPI would have been even worse. 

    On the other side, Scrap the Cap is not only necessary but fair.

  4. Scrap the Cap! I also think it would be safer for workers to dump pensions & make Employers pay in the extra to Social Security so that the worker would get larger Social Security checks at retirement. Too many companies are dropping Employer paid pensions & health Insurance. Obamacare supposedly will force them to pay healthcare again (I wouldn't hold my breath though). But what about pensions that keep your money if you become disabled before retirement age, or pensions that disappear in the stock market or just plain fraud like Enron?  I don't have a pension plan, my husband's plan was supposedly 1 credit short of vetting when he became disabled. But thousands of workers don't live to draw their pensions – especially in the building trades. Illinois never actually funded it's public employees' pension plans! So I think the employer (even States or Feds) should be forced to pay in matching Social Security for all workers!

  5. I am a strong supporter (and recipient)  of Social Security, but I do not support removing the cap.  Right now, the benefit is tied to how much you contribute.  There is a cap on benefits as well as contributions.  Everyone who pays in x dollars, gets y dollars in benefits.  If you remove the cap without removing the cap on benefits, then there will be people paying more into social security, but not receiving higher benefits. 

    Programs that do that, are call Welfare.  Turning SS into a welfare program makes it easier for it to be reduced, cut, or eliminated all together. 

    The solution for the SS shortfall that is currently predicted is to raise the fica tax.  All that is needed is to raise the tax about 0.1% per year for about 20 years.  For the average worker, that is less than $1 per week per year.  If you want more information, check out the http://angrybearblog.com/2013/02/2013-northwest-plan-for-real-social.html

     

  6. As Sen. Bernie Sanders & Rep. Peter DeFazio have proposed (and similar to what then Sen. Barack Obama did, too) I'd be happy if they lifted cap on income OVER $250,000 – but not on the income between today's cap and $250k.

     

  7. I agree with Senator Warren.  Social Security is the only pension some people have, either because the place they worked had no pension plan and they had no money to save, or they had a pension plan that was destroyed by the recession.  I know our "extra" money was hit hard by the recession.  We made long range plans and were able to save, but our nest egg got hit hard by the market crash that destroyed a lot of 401ks.  What we receive in Social Security is not enough to support us, but we were fortunate enough to have pensions.  I just hope they don't get cancelled.

  8. If I had a nickel for every time I've posted "Scrat the Cap!" here, I wouldn't need my Social Security,

  9. Scrap the Cap… ❗

  10. Social Security has become a black humorless joke.  Every "increase" makes me want to cry.  I get so little that I also get SSI from the state: now whittled down to $1.40.  That isn't a typo, that is one dollar and forty cents.  You know it takes more for the state of California to process that every month than the payment.  Because I receive SSI, I am not eligible for food stamps.  This year, my Medicare Part D went up another $5.  I can't complain, I'm only paying $25 in return for hundreds of dollars of drugs, but, why are the costs of these drugs so astronomical in the first place?  So now, I am only getting an extra $6 a month.  I can not afford my food and energy costs.  Strange, every increase PG&E asks for, it gets. There is no money for clothing and I can not ever possibly afford a car.    I've learned that people that spout off about busses don't ride them and I don't have the health or energy to deal with them.  Something has to give and soon.

    • Welcome Pamela! 🙂

      I fully agree that for poor people, the system is broken.  Republicans ran your state so far into the ground, that I see no chance for a quich recovery, eben with Governor Moonbeam at the helm.

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