This is a government report that is also slipping under the radar, and the people most likely impacted by it are the very ones who need to be paying attention.
But Democrats…
From Fox 11:
The Social Security program is expected to run dry within a decade as a result of slower economic growth — and today’s youngest retirees could be among the first in the nation to see benefit cuts.
New findings from the Social Security and Medicare Trustees report show the entitlement program faces insolvency as soon as 2033, a year earlier than previously projected, The acceleration toward insolvency is largely the result of a 3% downward revision of gross domestic product and labor productivity over the next decade.
Unless major changes are made before 2034 to shore up the trust fund, more than 66 million Americans would see a benefit reduction between about 23% to 25%, the report showed.
This comes as no surprise to me — or anyone else who is a part of Gen-X. Many of us have no plans to “retire” anyway, and we certainly were not expecting to be able to collect on Social Security as our so-trustworthy government had already raided it beyond repair and we knew we’d be the ones to never see anything from the fund. Sadly, the tail-end of the baby boomers (my husband) will probably be in shock, as they were still expecting to be able to draw from it. Despite years of paying in, and working to ensure their parents and grandparents stayed afloat, this is the thanks they get.
Good times with bad government. Details at 11.
“The combined trust funds will be insolvent by 2034, when today’s 56-year-olds reach the full retirement age and today’s youngest retirees turn 73,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) said in a recent analysis. “Upon insolvency, all beneficiaries will face a 20 percent across-the-board benefit cut.”
This is both a Democrat and Republican problem. Both administrations have made noises about protecting Social Security, and neither has done anything to move the ball forward. Eight years of George W. Bush, eight years of Barack Obama, and four years of Donald Trump have resulted in little progress in truly addressing the issue. When the government keeps spending money, and the national debt continues to balloon, it is hard to pay back what was raided from the fund in the first place.
In Biden’s State of the Union address, he accused Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and rightly received pushback. It’s every lawmaker’s fault; and it doesn’t help that Democrats and Republicans keep appointing the same robber barons to manage the funds while talking out the sides of their necks about maintaining it. Enter former Obama Chair of the Federal Reserve, and current Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who never met a bank she didn’t want to bail out.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who leads the Social Security and Medicare trustees, emphasized the need to bolster both the Medicare and Social Security funds in a statement on Friday.
“Social Security and Medicare are two bedrock programs that older American rely upon for their retirement security,” she said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring the long-term viability of these critical programs so that retirees can receive the hard-earned benefits they’re owed.”
Sure, Jan. Since Yellen probably never plans to retire, and even if she did, has no retirement worries (at least in terms of finances), consider this lip service to the plebes before the government lets the fund further tank and continues to exacerbate the financial woes of every American, retiree or otherwise. Because with them, the solution is always more taxation.
Biden proposed raising Medicare taxes from 3.8% to 5% on annual income above $400,000 in his budget proposal earlier this month. He also floated closing a loophole used by business owners and higher-earners to shield some of their income from additional taxes.
The White House estimated the floated changes would extend the Medicare trust fund by an additional 25 years, “beyond 2050.”
The continued incompetence of the federal government which does nothing to stop the erosion of Social Security and Medicare should not be lost on us. Why should the American people keep trusting their word that they are going to fix it, when every five to 10 years we get these reports that the funds are going under? Among their other tasks while they hold a majority in the House, if Republican lawmakers wrest this fund from federal government control and find a way to privatize it, this would be a huge step forward in moving toward solvency for the coming generations.
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