Posted on 08/07/2022 4:53:44 PM PDT by george76
Inflation has been taking its toll on retirees, especially those who rely solely on Social Security. But have no fear, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and seven Democratic cosponsors recently introduced S. 4365, the Social Security Expansion Act, a bill to enhance Social Security benefits and ensure the long-term solvency of the Social Security program.
If this bill passes, retirees 62 and over would start to receive an additional $200 a month in benefits beginning in January 2023. Most retirees rely heavily on Social Security benefits, and for some it’s their only source of income.
Currently, Americans will stop receiving their full Social Security benefits in about 13 years if Congress doesn’t act to address the pending shortfall, according to an annual report released in June by the Social Security and Medicare trustees. In other words, monthly benefits will dramatically decrease to all by 2034. At that time, the fund’s reserves will be depleted, and payroll taxes will only cover 77% of benefits owed. About 56 million people received these benefits in 2021.
With this new legislation all may not be lost, as the new bill aims to ease seniors’ financial strain by boosting each recipient’s monthly check. The average monthly Social Security check is about $1,658, meaning a $200 increase would represent a 12% boost. This year’s Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) of 5.9 percent is based on inflation figures from 2021. But since then, inflation has pushed well above nine percent, meaning Social Security recipients today are actually losing money.
“Many, many seniors rely on Social Security for the majority, if not all, of their income,” said Martha Shedden, president of the National Association of Registered Social Security Analysts. “$200 a month can make a significant difference for many people.”
How will Congress ensure that Social Security will be able to increase benefits and stay solvent for years to come? If you guessed increasing payroll taxes to cover the costs, then you guessed right. According to the bill’s sponsors, the proposed changes will be made possible by raising taxes on people who earn more money per year.
Today Social Security taxes are set at 6.2 percent for employees and employers. This figure is for each, not for both combined. Self-employed workers pay a higher tax rate of 12.4 percent. As the maximum taxable salary is $147,000, the maximum tax payable is therefore $9,114 each for employee and employer, with the self-employed paying up to $18,228 per year.
The bill proposes to increase the maximum taxable salary for Social Security, adding funding by applying the Social Security payroll tax to all income below $250,000. Currently, earnings above $147,000 aren’t subject to the Social Security tax. An additional proposal would be to base the annual COLA on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) instead of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).
Not all in Congress are on the same page with the proposed Social Security Expansion Act. Republican senators were eager to state their opposition to the bill, with Mitt Romney (R-Utah) proudly proclaiming, “This bill has no chance whatsoever of receiving a single Republican vote in either House.”
Instead, the Republicans are proposing the so-called TRUST Act (S. 1295), a bill that establishes congressional rescue committees to develop recommendations and legislation to improve critical social-contract programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested a Senate vote pitting the Social Security Expansion Act against the TRUST Act.
The Expansion Act bill is new and has several hurdles to cross in Congress, but observers expect some kind of change to Social Security to ensure it serves the needs of recipients well into the future. No one knows what Congress will end up with other than it will likely cost Americans more.
We all know that taxation is theft, and the promise of all welfare programs such as Social Security will never be the utopia as expounded by our inept politicians. In a free society the individual should be responsible for his journey in life, knowing full well the consequences of his actions. That responsibility includes planning for retirement. Ultimately, Social Security should be sunset and retirement decisions left to the individual.
An awakening for all Americans who continue to carry the burden of our government’s largesse would be to abolish payroll withholding taxes and allow employees to keep their hard-earned wages. This would force government to end nanny-state socialism and wasteful spending, and bring about a long-needed budgetary revolution.
If all us old folks die off in the next year or two as the anti-vaxx FReepers predict, there’s no problem at all.
Our gov robbed the well funded SS trust fund decades ago. Our gov is feckless, reckless and criminal.
Every damn item of Trumps agenda had to be done with EO giving PEDO JOE the ability to overturn every damn thing, YET every stinking thing that PEDO JOE has done has gone through the legislation making it IMPOSSIBLE to overturn a damn thing!! It is our own damn fault for electing these SCUMBAG RINOS!! I wonder if in 2 years we will be STILL SAYING the R is better than the D continue to vote the lesser of two evil, which IS NOT the lesser of two evil, WE won’t learn it will be the SAME DAMN THING!! SPIT!!!
Read the article. By raising the maximum taxable amount to $250,000.
“..I HATE THE BASTARDS IN DC!!...”
All I can tell ya, Kit, is take a number and get in line.....you’re definitely NOT alone.
Social security used to be EXEMPT from federal income taxes.
I was 15 1/2.
The youngest that was legal at the time. (1979)
But I'd been working part-time off the books off and on since I was 12.
At 12 I started learning how to pour concrete while helping
to renovate a miniature golf course.
And 'Pleasant Valley Miniature Golf' - and some of my handiwork - still stands!
LOL
Good, correct, points.
As I remember, the last time I looked at the US Debt Clock the debt was around 27 trillion. Yep, we’re screwed.
It’s far, far better helping American citizens than stuffing money into the pockets of crooked Churchill wannabes. Good on whoever pushed this help forward.
Most seniors have pensions and paid off homes……I personally don’t know any who just depend on SS.
.
I used to have my work in a gallery owned by a German
woman and we had many interesting conversations.
She related to me that at the time of the Weimar Republic
she pawned her father’s gold watch and paid off the note
on their house with the inflated proceeds.
“I have to admit, though, the indica just makes me want to relax”.
Lol
I tried it to help me sleep but it didn’t work.
So many young men and women did work such as that many years ago. I helped out in family member’s small businesses. My mother managed a clothing store, and I worked there part-time in the summers and at the end of the year during inventory time, during the school Christmas break. All of my siblings and I got summer jobs. It was expected and we loved having the money for those small extras, plus buying our own back to school clothes.
Looking back, I realize that it was a big help to my parents with so many children that we contributed to our on expenses as teenagers. And, then that first car! What an accomplishment. (Even though it was a beat-up old Ford Fairlane and the passenger side window handle was a pair of pliers, and the hood was wired closed with an old metal clothes-hanger).
Good post.
My home is paid off, I have NO BILLS, and I had to get a part time job, going to the grocery store has become the national debt!! You still have auto insurance, homeowners insurance, I live in a gated community on a golf course so I have an association fee, my electric bill has gone SKY HIGH, my association fee includes water, trash and gas!! I have cell phone bill, internet services, my pension these last few months is NOT what it used to be!! I absolutely HATE walking into the grocery store to just pick up a few things it is TRIPLE what it used to be!! I have a cat his food has gone from 47 cents a can to 93 cents a can ridiculous!!
“I’m eligible in 2038. Probably get 5 bucks and told to be happy...”
Sweetheart? If you haven’t been planning for your retirement years WITHOUT SS in the picture, you’re in big, BIG trouble.
But you’ve still got a decent amount of time to plan, if you start right now!
I get my first SS payment in September. Know what I wish? I wish I had been ‘allowed’ to keep ALL of the money I’ve earned over a lifetime of hard work, versus it being STOLEN from me through a confiscatory taxation Ponzi Scheme!
It SICKENS me to know what my Tax Dollars have paid for through the years - abortions, bridges to nowhere, Socialist Democrat and RINO slush funds, and helping to support every loser out there on a Town, County, City, State or Federal Payroll, as well as all the Baby Daddies and Side-Chicks and seemingly endless illegitimate kids that have the whole thing working in their favor!
Please! I BEG of you, and anyone else reading. LEARN about your taxes and pay only what you owe by law that won’t send you to prison. I really fear for my Fellow Conservatives.
(I don’t give a rat’s rump about Socialist Democrats and RINOs.)
tax the rich, meaning the upper middle class, by increasing earnings subject to SS tax to $250,000
this is especially yummy for working couples, they get to pay double, and yet qualify for one check
SS has always been a pay as you go system. Your generation agreed to pay oldsters income by taking your money and paying them. There is no investment, no gains for SS paid in, it all goes into the general fund and is spent. Eventually the young will see what a terrible deal this is for their own investments and future. But oldsters vote in huge numbers so not likely we will see them voting to reduce the stealing from their kids and grandkids to pay them. There should never have been a federal method that passed constitutional muster to take from one citizen and pay another for any reason unless they were actually working and performing a service for the government.
F__ our Grandchildren, Let’s Party!
Do you have ANY IDEA how many people are on Disability SS it is astronomical, with their EBT cards, housing vouchers, and on and on this is the BS that needs to STOP!! Now we have a couple of million that just crossed the border that will be on the government dole also!! This country has gone WAY PAST the point of no return!! I don’t think Trump can fix this any longer another two years of this, I keep looking at Venezuela what a wealthy country it WAS!! Scares the hell out of me!!
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