Should the Social Security and Medicare Age be Raised

[Ray From Cleveland]

no one likes being poor

Few are poor because they're lazy (in fact MANY lazy people make a good living...I've had the misfortune of having to deal with far too many of them.)

You make claims like that because it makes you feel superior

Funny...you almost seemed to understand what the working man goes through above...and then then fell into cult talk immediately

I was a working man. Drove all my life. Spent the last 28 years of that driving a tractor-trailer. I come from a working class family.

My experience is that people do opt to be poor. In many cases it's because they can't get off the dope. Better paying jobs require random drug screening for employees. So they work lower paying jobs so they can continue getting doped up.

In other cases they are lazy. They work only X amount of hours to meet their maximum that government will allow to remain on programs like food stamps, HUD, general welfare and so on. Some of my former customers would only hire through temp agencies. They use temp agencies to try out workers first. When they ask the government dependents to work overtime, they refuse. It's like working for free for them and they want to get maximum benefits from the government.

 

[rightwinger]

No, the age should not be raised.

How do you propose to save t?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

And also missing from this thread is the very real discrimination that exist loud and clear - ageism.
People over 50 have a very hard time finding equivalent employment. And the more you get above 50 - the more you are discriminated against.
So taking away people's retirement, and then also discriminate against them trying to stay employed?? - Special kind of assholes think this way.

 

[WinterBorn]

Sorry to hear about you and your wife's health issues. But there are a few options to consider.
1. You don't need to work until ages 66 and 67. You can get SS at 62 but less than the max amount. Its a tradeoff on how much you need a month from SS.
2. The problem is that Medicare starts at age 65, so if you retire before age 65 paying out of pocket for healthcare insurance is expensive. Hope you have a pile of cash saved up.

I will start drawing my Social Security next month. I turn 62 this month. No, I will not get the maximum like I would if I waited until I was 67. But I will be ahead until I reach 76 to 78 years of age. I paid into this pyramid scheme since I was 15 years old. Every administration since 1984 has "borrowed" from the Social Security trust fund. And not one dime has been repaid.

 

[rightwinger]

Options available to make SS solvent

1. Increase the retirement age up to 70
2. Make all income subject to SS taxes
3. Increase contributions from workers/employers

Choose your poison

 

[WinterBorn]

Eliminate the earnings cap and SS will be fine.

Have congress make good on their promise to repay what they "borrowed" and SS will be fine for a long while.

 

[WinterBorn]

Options available to make SS solvent

1. Increase the retirement age up to 70
2. Make all income subject to SS taxes
3. Increase contributions from workers/employers

Choose your poison

I choose option 4. Make congress repay what they have "borrowed" since the 1980s.

 

[WorldWatcher]

Do you seriously doubt we are living longer than our ancestors, tard? Really.

Do we really live longer than our ancestors?

The wonders of modern medicine and nutrition make it easy to believe we enjoy longer lives than at any time in human history, but we may not be that special after all.

www.bbc.com

I was thinking about this previously, and it is really an interesting question. That question being: has life span increased much or on average or more people making it to "the golden years".

As an example used on the article. If you have 2 people and 1 dies in the first year of life and one lives to 70, then the average life span for that population is 35 years.

In other words is the increase in average life span because we as a species are living longer (yes to a degree because of modern medicine), OR is the impact because of DECREASES in mortality of infants and the young, improved work place safety, improved medicine curing disease that in the past may have killed someone in their 20's.

Increasing average life span does not necessarily mean the species is living longer to a significant degree.

Interesting to ponder.

WW

 

[rightwinger]

I will start drawing my Social Security next month. I turn 62 this month. No, I will not get the maximum like I would if I waited until I was 67. But I will be ahead until I reach 76 to 78 years of age. I paid into this pyramid scheme since I was 15 years old. Every administration since 1984 has "borrowed" from the Social Security trust fund. And not one dime has been repaid.

You get the same payout regardless of when you retire
Your monthly payment depends on how many years you are expected to draw

Congratulations
As long as you have other sources of income/ house paid off, you should be OK

 

[rightwinger]

I choose option 4. Make congress repay what they have "borrowed" since the 1980s.

The money will come from the taxpayers not Congress

 

[WinterBorn]

Do you seriously doubt we are living longer than our ancestors, tard? Really.

Unlike you brainless parroting rubes, I don't make shit up.

When I say the over 65 age group made up 5.4 percent of the population when SS was enacted, I didn't pull that out of my ass the way you would.

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1930/population-volume-2/16440598v2ch11.pdf

See the table on page 566.

When I say the percentage of over 65 has tripled since then, I'm not making that up, either.

U.S. - seniors as a percentage of the population 2022| Statista

In 2022, about 17.3 percent of the American population was 65 years old or over; an increase from the last few years and a figure which is expected to reach 22 percent by 2050.

www.statista.com

In case you don't have the mental capacity to multiply 5.4 times 3, that's 16.2.


We have literally tripled the percentage of the population drawing Social Security from our national treasury, while the percent of people paying into the system has commensurately been reduced.

This is unsustainable.

We need to raise the retirement age to 70 and index it to 9 percent of the population going forward.

We are living longer, we should be working longer.

Common. Fricking. Sense.

And if the gov't had not "borrowed" from SS during the years there were huge surpluses, it would still be solvent.

 

[WinterBorn]

The money will come from the taxpayers not Congress

Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment and make Congress live within the income provided.

And cut the DoD budget by 1/3.

 

[gipper]

With the exception of those mentally or physically impaired, poverty is an option in this country, not an affliction. If you are poor in America today, it's because you made bad financial decisions in your life, you're lazy, or you like being poor.

Silly. You have no understanding.

 

[rightwinger]

Do we really live longer than our ancestors?

The wonders of modern medicine and nutrition make it easy to believe we enjoy longer lives than at any time in human history, but we may not be that special after all.

www.bbc.com

I was thinking about this previously, and it is really an interesting question. That question being: Has life span increased or on average or more people making it to "the golden years).

As an example used on the article. If you have 2 people and 1 dies in the first year of life and one lives to 70, then the average life span for that population is 35 years.

In other words is the increase in average life span because we as a species are living longer (yes to a degree because of modern medicine), OR is the impact because of DECREASES in mortality of infants and the young, improved work place safety, improved medicine curing disease that in the past may have killed someone in their 20's.

Increasing average life span does not necessarily mean the species is living longer to a significant degree.

Interesting to ponder.

WW

In my experience, I see people living much longer

I remember as a kid, grandparents would die in their 60’s to early 70s
Now, they live well into their 80s

Reasons

Much better healthcare in dealing with heart attacks, cancer, preventing strokes and screening for other health issues

Smoking has been cut by more than half

 

[WinterBorn]

Do we really live longer than our ancestors?

The wonders of modern medicine and nutrition make it easy to believe we enjoy longer lives than at any time in human history, but we may not be that special after all.

www.bbc.com

I was thinking about this previously, and it is really an interesting question. That question being: Has life span increased or on average or more people making it to "the golden years).

As an example used on the article. If you have 2 people and 1 dies in the first year of life and one lives to 70, then the average life span for that population is 35 years.

In other words is the increase in average life span because we as a species are living longer (yes to a degree because of modern medicine), OR is the impact because of DECREASES in mortality of infants and the young, improved work place safety, improved medicine curing disease that in the past may have killed someone in their 20's.

Increasing average life span does not necessarily mean the species is living longer to a significant degree.

Interesting to ponder.

WW

This is a great point that many do not know or do not acknowlege.

We aren't living significantly longer. We have simply made huge improvements in infants and children surviving. Go to any cemetery that is more than 100 years old and see the large number of infant and children's graves.

 

[BlackSand]

Just to throw this out there. When people talk about raising the cap on the "rich", the Social Security tax only applies to earned income (wages), it does not apply to passive income (interest, stocks, inheritance, investments, etc.)

WW

.

Uncap the Maximum Allowable Social Security Retirement Benefit and someone may be interested in your proposition.


.​

 

[WinterBorn]

In my experience, I see people living much longer

I remember as a kid, grandparents would die in their 60’s to early 70s
Now, they live well into their 80s

Reasons

Much better healthcare in dealing with heart attacks, cancer, preventing strokes and screening for other health issues

Smoking has been cut by more than half

Both my grandparents lived to 90+. My great-grandparents did the same.

But my father had one brother live to retirement and 3 siblings die in either infancy or childhood.

 

[WinterBorn]

In my experience, I see people living much longer

I remember as a kid, grandparents would die in their 60’s to early 70s
Now, they live well into their 80s

Reasons

Much better healthcare in dealing with heart attacks, cancer, preventing strokes and screening for other health issues

Smoking has been cut by more than half

Yes, we have cut down on the number of smokers, for sure. But the number of chemicals and inorganic substances we take in has skyrocketed.

 

[woodwork201]

Mic drop, these are 2 of the best ways to fund these benefits. And eliminate or substantially raise the SS cap on wages.
MAGA

I earn beyond the cap so the cap allows me to keep some small bit more of my money every year; I've never calculated how much, though. My first reaction to your post was that I probably wouldn't terribly miss the difference if they were to remove the cap; I'm financially stable and live within my means; I'll be fine.

But then I realize that surrendering to more taxes is not the answer to bad government. So, no, unless they're going to increase what I get in return I do not want them to increase what they take.

 

[g5000]

The Biden admin has done nothing to fix anything.

No Administration has ever done anything to fix Medicare and SS.