Posted on 02/07/2023 7:21:17 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Many Americans eagerly look forward to a time when they can stop working and officially set their status to “retired.” But when asked what age they anticipate that could be, there isn’t a consensus. The average age when people say they hope to retire is 62, according to one survey.
SNIP
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives last week approved a retirement bill that would push out the age for required minimum distributions on certain savings accounts to 75, up from the current age of 72. That change, if it passes the Senate, would be gradually phased in by 2032.
SNIP
Retirement ages were last altered in 1983 under then-President Ronald Reagan. Those changes, which raised the full retirement age to 67 from 65, are still being phased in today. Even just the bump up to age 66 from 65 represented a 5% benefit cut, Elsasser noted.
Read more at the link.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
If you happen to die before age 67 you get nothing.
Extending that age actually works to the retirees benefit. This is the age where you have to take a certain percentage of your retirement savings out of tax sheltered investments (and therefore pay tax on them) Has nothing to do with the age at which you retire
While life expectancy is going lower again.
YEP - Americans Last
Once again
They’ll keep raising the age and will likely combine it with means testing.
Eventually, there will be no recipients of benefits, but SS taxes plus the taxes required to pay the employees and maintain the buildings will continue to go up because they won’t reduce the workforce for the program.
A number of Antifa and BLM terrorists turned out to be federal workers. Cut the federal workforce by 50% and watch the cities burn.
No money for Social Security, but plenty for Covid stimulus, slave reparations, CRT, and “gender affirmation surgeries.”
I started mine at 62.
Running the numbers, you get the same amount of benefits (total) that you get later up to 80 (and change).
Since my decent-paying career pretty much died in the 2008 crash, it was my best option.
Should I be able to resume at good salary levels, then I would stop the benefit. You can turn it off for a period as well. Just be aware of where you are, income-wise.
And I agree with others, your Social Security payout should not be taxable income.
AND they should RAISE how much regular income (earned income) you can make before full retirement age.
That would keep more skilled workers in the workforce.
1) massively increase taxes - which is a dead letter politically. People are simply not going to be willing to pay a lot more in taxes to pay out to retirees.
2) cut social security benefits. They've been linked to wages rather than inflation for a long time (wages grow faster usually). Thus in real terms SS payouts have increased. This will encounter fierce resistance from those collecting SS and those who are near retirement age.
3) raise the retirement age. When SS was implemented the average life expectancy was.....drumroll......65. Yes that's right? You were expected to pay in and then die before collecting anything. Well now life expectancy has stretched out to 79-80. That opened up a 15 year window of payouts on average. Obviously, that's hugely expensive. Raising the retirement age is probably the least painful way to effectively reduce the payout and it gets people paying in for an additional time.
It was a ponzi scheme from day 1. People were not paid benefits based on what they had put into the system. They were paid benefits starting on day 1 of the program. That can only work so long as people crank out the kids so we have a lot more taxpayers paying into the system. Well....people did not uphold their end of the deal starting at about 1965 or so when the baby boom ended. We simply have nowhere near enough taxpayers to support the massive baby boom generation in retirement.
You can shake your fist at the heavens and get as angry as you want about it but that's not going to change anything. Either we do one of 3 options above (or a combo of all 3) OR the government is going to deliberately stoke inflation so as to pay out SS and other benefits with dollars that are worth a whole lot less - ie a "constructive default". This is what governments have done throughout history. They have debased the currency when they could no longer pay their debts.
[Running the numbers, you get the same amount of benefits (total) that you get later (if you waited until full retirement age - nearly 67 for me) up to 80 (and change).]
Now, of course, YMMV.
IF you’re still earning good money, then the above will not work for you.
Exactly. I’ve always figured I would not collect one dime of Social Security. In 2035 I’ll be..,..65. Perfect timing! LOL!
Hopefully, I never retire. I...brace yourself....WANT to work until I literally drop dead. I enjoy working.
Good post.
By the time the RAT azhos get through with paying off the student loan deadbeats to go to Europe on vaction and eat in all the finest restaurants, then paying off the negro slaves to get themselves “repaired”, and finally to pay the tab for the all the partying “refugees” up in the Big Apple and Canada, I don’t see any money left in 2035. The former America will be officially “woke broke”. The “GREAT” America will be nothing but history. We’ll be in the toilet just as most socialist and communist crapholes are. But hey! The Dung beetles in the “mainstream media” will all be writing “books” about how a cranky old, lying ass pedophile saved the world by being “da greatest president ever!”.
It’ll be 80 before you know it!
“They are merely extending the day in which it finally caves in. FDR bragged about how Republicans could not kill his scam in 100 years. Getting people used to being on the Government dole is how we got into our current mess.”
Years ago, at the most CONSERVATIVE site on the web (FreeRepublic), I made a simple suggestion: “Treat Social Security (and Medicare) like Child Support.” If an old-timer has three kids who are doctors, make the KIDS pay his SS and Medicare. If he has one kid who’s a trucker, make the kid pay a piece of his retirement (small piece, but still a piece), but have government pick up the rest - again, no different than Child Support.
You can guess the reaction from the IDIOTS here who aren’t capable of understanding that EVERY DIME they paid in to SS was immediately spent and ALL money now is simply debt added to kids who haven’t even been born yet. SS contributions were simply a disguised INCOME TAX.
And yes, the IDIOTS included virtually everyone who responded to me - so yes, FDR was DEAD-ON regarding the inability of Americans to get away from government handouts. It’s hopeless - and so at this point, we might as well double our taxation level to at least try to get enough revenue to keep from further adding to the debt, but that also won’t happen...because Americans are trained to think they’re already overtaxed.
...and now many of these IDIOTS are demanding we go to war with Russia and China.
It’s over.
#11 At 67 years 6 months I would get a bit over $2,000 a month. At 70 I would get $2,600+
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Great, if it does not run out of money by then.
I’ll start at 62, and get what I get...
“OR the government is going to deliberately stoke inflation so as to pay out SS and other benefits with dollars that are worth a whole lot less - ie a “constructive default”. This is what governments have done throughout history. They have debased the currency when they could no longer pay their debts.”
That is what is going to happen.
Tinkering with the system at this point is just a political death march.
The reason is because the rest of the budget is also a dumpster fire—and unless you assume all of it is massively cut together nothing has been solved.
People like me, born in 1950, get a bad deal from Social Security, in actuarial terms. Social Security was supposed to be paid for by the “contribution” of workers. It was sold as a saving scheme. It has always been easy for politicians to make payments to the living, knowing that the bill would come long after they are out office. Politicians paid seniors in the 1980’s with the taxes of workers in the 1980’s, well above the actuarial value of those beneficiaries. Millions of people (myself included) knew at the time that this was a Ponzi scheme. But Social Security was never sold as a welfare program, money is only paid out of the Social Security Fund, not general revenues. So far.
When Social Security started in the 1930’s life expectancy was about 65 years. Half the beneficiaries never collected a dime. Since then, things have changed. We live longer. Life expectancy at birth is about 82 years today, and those reach 65 have about another 20 years of expected life span. We have far few children than our parents and grandparents, so there are many more beneficiaries, and many fewer workers to support them.
It is the Democrats who have demagogued Social Security for at least the past half century, and cast aspersions on those who asked for more moderate reforms before we went off the cliff. The demographic signs were crystal clear fifty years ago, and it has only gotten worse since.
Like the title of the book about Madoff, “No One Listened”.
So no Medicare until 67?
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