Maybe we could come up with better ways to help the poor without government. They sure do a bad job. But we should start by focusing on true need and doing the best we can for those who cannot make it on their own. Now, we just force them into the worst, crime infested neighborhoods and sick an army of exploiters on them.
I'm a great granny - and I have been trying for years to get an answer to: "Who in DC reconfigured the social security charts to cut/gut benefits for women of my era?"Just one lousy month before I was eligible for social sec., the estimated monthly benefit amount for me dropped by almost $300.
I had no choice in "retiring" - doctor's orders "or you will be dead in 6 months." (Following, among other medical problems and a heart attack, leaving me with CHF)
It used to be that SS benefits were calibrated on the last 10 years of ones working history. Now it's figured/averaged on your working history from age 15.
Very clever. That cuts benefit amounts significantly, but for women of my era, who traditionally were stay-at-home mothers, back in the age where families lived better on one income than they can now on two, it cuts deep.
And it is definitely anti-family. It punishes not only my generation of women, but parents today who make the decision that they want to raise their own children by having a parent in the home.
How? Those years of zero income for the stay-at-home parent are added in as zeroes, which brings the average per year income down dramatically. Ergo, the parents who put their children first are penalized come retirement.
I think that the least Washington could do is 'credit' the child rearing years by not adding them in the 'zero' years. It wouldn't help much but would be a bit less anti-family. Some countries, Denmark for example, give tax CREDITS to families to encourage them to have one parent in the home during early childhood years.
Do you remember ever hearing that SS benefits were cut? Betcha you never did. the recalibrating was a very innovative and underhanded maneuver to cut benefits without it being on the books or in the open as being a reduction in benefits.
And if any of you can get a straight answer to this, I'd love to hear it. (This political recalibration was put into effect in 1998)
I had to 'retire' but if I also wanted to eat and stay in my home, I had to make additional money. Fortunately, I still had/have a small income from my newspaper column, now running into it's 20th anniversary. As writing is as easy as breathing to me, this is no problem.
In addition, I have been able, as an artist, to pick up a bit more here and there.
But then comes the other rib from Big Daddy, IRS.
This puts me in the "self-employed" category...with the IRS slapping me with double SS taxes at 15.7% = not to mention a mountain of separate forms come tax time. I am able to take off a little for 'business expenses' - but any 'income' over that is subject to the double tax. With the pittance total income I have - below the poverty level, believe me - I can't afford to earn more than a small amount a year or I wouldn't be able to pay the tax. And here's the kicker: When you pay SS security taxes, it gets credited to be added into and later calibrated for an increase, though small, in later SS monthly benefits in coming years, right?
Huh! NOT unless the amount you have to pay in self-emp double SS taxes in any given year is MORE than the top amount you paid in any given year during your entire working life. Otherwise, they just take the money and you can forgeddabout it.
My question to them has been, and will always remain unanswered: "If you are not going to credit the money to the SS account of the person paying it, then why do you feel you have the right to collect it?"
However, all the above aside: I grew up on a little farm deep in the north woods of Maine, with my grandparents, just coming up out of the Great Depression. They knew how to stretch a penny. They knew the difference between a "want and a need." We didn't go to town just to see what there was on sale. We only bought what was needed. As Gramma said: "It ain't a bargain if you don't need it."
I have since lived all over this great country and ended up back t'home, now in my own little house in the woods. I do not have, nor do I want, a dishwasher or air-conditioning. As I write this, it is a very hot day, as Labor Day is wont to be here, and I have the windows open, a ceiling fan going in the living room and an old, sturdy GE fan (that belonged to my Aunt back in the 50's) blowing on me in my office. And my breakfast dishes are waiting in the sink - takes no more time to hand wash and air dry than to rinse, stack and unload a machine...and I get to gaze out the window over the sink to watch the birds and squirrels vie over the sunflower seeds.
I drive a 16 year old car that shows signs of giving up the ghost - but I will worry about that when the day arrives...since I can't do anything about it today. "Sufficient unto the day..," are the worries thereof. I am contemplating, however, getting a donkey. They are pretty maintenance free, relative to horses, and don't need expensive grain. I could ride him to the village store and he could 'gas up' nibbling by the roadside. ;o)
This past year, my income had a dramatic rise, comparatively, due to an unforeseen happenstance. My yearly income has increased by over a third, but is still far less than 20 thousand. I still have a mortgage and prop taxes and can't afford to make more income by self-emp as I couldn't take the double SS tax hit.
But I have learned how to do just fine by "living within my needs" and not worrying about my 'wants' - It can be done.