Sorry Seniors
For the second year in a row, the Consumer Price Index has not increased and the Social Security Administration has announced that there will be no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) raises going to Social Security recipients, disabled workers, or survivors of deceased workers this year. And the seniors are up in arms about it.
Now, mind you, I’ve been a senior citizen—for quite a while now. And Social Security makes a welcome contribution to my retirement income. But the sole purpose of the COLA provision was to help people overcome the ravages of inflation; and, if there ain’t any, they don’t need that protection!
Sure, I’m familiar with the argument that the increase in cost of the things important to seniors, like food and medicine, has not abated; and the the things that held prices down were those that did not affect them.
But ours is the generation that gave the store away, mortgaged our kids’ and their kids’ kids’ futures so that we could live higher on the hog than we should have. So, if there’s anyone who should be ticked off, it should be those kids who are having to pay into a system they’ll not likely benefit from because we committed them to do it.
Of course, they won’t notice it until after we’re gone, because we’re the generation that never learned—nor taught our kids—the hazards of living for today and neglecting tomorrow.
Ours is the generation that, in the interest of making sure that our kids “won’t have to go through what we went through,” deprived them of the satisfaction of doing for themselves, and denied them the self esteem that goes with it.
No matter how needy we might be, we had better suck it up and be grateful we get anything at all from Social Security. the biggest, self-inflicted, de facto Ponzi scheme of all time!
Just my observations, but living in the midwest farm belt several generations of a family lived together under one roof. When the grand father died, the house and farm were handed down to the son or sons.
If more room were needed, an addition was added to the house rather than building a totally new house.
Retirement was simple: you worked until you were too crippled or sick to work and you were then taken car of by your sons and daughters. In effect, your children supported your retirement.
With the modern world dissolving the family and children moving all over the US and world to work for companies this simple model of retirement has virtually ceased to exist.
Social Security was never meant to be the main means for retirement although this is all some people have to depend upon at retirement.
Let’s not also forget that SS provides disability insurance and payments to children whom are orphaned.
One trick the government has played not only on SS, but anyone with a COLA (cost of living adjustments) like my disability policy or an inflation adjusted annuity, is the recalculation of inflation in the late 1990′s. This effectively reduced the inflation rate by .75% per year according to the May 31, 1999 Business Week article on page 34. (Gosh I’m a pack-rat!)
Also chewing away at SS has been the governments taxation of SS benefits. I have no first hand knowledge of these facts, but have been told by my elders that SS was initially tax free. It was then decided that since the employers had never paid tax on their half of SS tax, the government would tax 50% of the SS benefits. This was then raised to up to 85% to reflect the investing profits that had never been taxed. (Opps, those are not investment profits as you pointed out in the ponzi scheme.)
Fixing SS is simple.
1. take the ceiling off the taxable amount for SS like they’ve done for medicare.
2. Start a needs test for receiving SS. It might not be all or nothing since people whom contributed several hundred thousand dollars to the fund might holler.
3. Tax the entire amount of SS an individual receives.
All of this ignores the real 800 pound gorilla in the room of Medicare. Health care is really the scary part of aging especially if the incentive for our youth to invest 12 years of their lives in post high school education to become a physician has been taken away.
We may have plenty of money to fund health care at the government reimbursement rate, but no one to perform the services.
It seems funny that while the government has declared inflation to be nil and not increasing SS benefits, they continually raise the earnings ceiling upon which the SS taxes are based!
Each year around my birthday the SS office send out a 4 page form showing my contributions since I began working in 1980 and my projected benefits at age 62, 67, and 70. At the end and in small print they state that as currently funded I will receive only 76% of my estimated benefit.
My hygienist, whom is in her mid 30′s says her statement promises much, much less than 76%.!!!
Gary
Gary