And how likely is it that what you want will happen?
I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but what I have in mind is means testing (i.e., no SSI if you have a substantial retirement fund) and a complete removal of the cap on SSI contributions (honestly, why not just use the income tax and the general fund? Because it’s a “retirement account”? Bullshit – it’s welfare for old people.) I’m not sure any other adjustments, but I clicked “raise…under 35” just in case. What I’m getting at is that I want to abandon this fiction of accounts and insurance, and just have people who are young enough to work support those who are too old to work. Funding it with income tax instead of the hare-brained payroll tax will ensure that people pay according to their means, and means testing will ensure that people who can get by on their own do so.
I’d like the government to quit siphoning money out of the Soc Sec trust fund to pay for other things.
(Warning: relatively conservative site/cite)
There’s no reason to posit that Social Security can’t pay for itself. It’s been paying for itself and every other damn thing year after year.
Let all other program get themselved paid for overtly and keep your damn hands out of the Social Security cookie jar. Or at a minimum stop wringing your cookie-crumb laden hands and bewailing the sad fate of social security, oh what are we going to do about social security which can’t pay for itself, wail wail?! Yeesh!
Didn’t vote, as I’d probably like to see a little bit of all of the above. Gore everybody’s ox. Eliminate the max salary subject to withholding, tweak entitlement ages up slightly, and impose some means testing and you’ve taken care of a lot of the problem.
And I’d like to see a thorough review of the disability programs, drastically reducing kids’ SSI, and changing the age categories for DIB and SSI.
As the economy and life expectancies have changed, I think we really need to rethink whether people are entitled to “go on vacation” for a couple of decades beginning in their mid 60s.
At least partial means testing, i.e. a sliding scale based on your contribution-based elegibility vs your non-SSA retiree income above a certain point, but with a benefit “floor” as I don’t want to discourage saving for retirement by making you lose it all if you were moderately wise about planning. Being already part of the boomer generation that got bumped up from 65 to 67, I would not be too badly shook up by another rise for the next cohort, or heck, even 2 more years for myself; reality suggests that I expect to need to be actively earning my living past 70 anyway. I would also add to the choices eliminating the contribution cap. And yes, cut down on the using it as a cash flow source.
(BTW: To elaborate on something Nametag said, the name of the thing is not Social Insurance it’s Social Security, and what they take out of your paycheck is already clearly called a tax, not a premium. We just pretend to not notice.)
#1 definitely the payroll contributions should continue past $106k.
but also, I think SS should be a true “safety net”, as in there to catch you when shit happens and you fall. Not your “retirement fund”. When I worked at a consultancy that was associated with a tax firm, I saw returns for people that had nearly $1mm in “unearned” income (from RE investments) and they still got their SS. Bullshit! I guess that would make me in favor of means testing also.
ETA: might as well raise the age to 70 and hold it there for a while. By doing all three, I think there’s a better chance of things balancing out in the end.
I think a large part of SS’s problems relate to the fact that it has (IMO) been “marketed” (IMO) dishonestly as a retirement program rather than a wealth redistributive tax. It’s true nature has been blindingly obvious from day 1 to anyone who has cared to notice, but EVERYONE derives considerably more benefit by presenting it as something that it clearly is not.
Note - I think a “safety net” as you describe is a VERY good thing. Also, not that my opinons should mean anything more than anyone else’s, but I’ve developed some mighty strong ones having worked for SS for the past 25 years.
Means testing is a great idea, no need to send someone a few hundred bucks extra a month if they’re just going to spend it on greens fees and don’t need it while others are eating cat food.
I know I’m a dreamer, but I’d like to see SS expanded to cover anyone at any age who needs it because I think the lack of any kind of safety net in this country for people who aren’t retired is the root of a lot of our problems, but that’s a horse of a different color.
Means testing is a good start. Social Security is welfare for old people, but the richer you are the more you get. That makes no sense at all.
I don’t like the means test. You paid into it, you should get out of it.
Raising the age is also something that isn’t right. It’s one thing to tell at 65 year old guy who pushes a pencil he’ll have to work for another year, but this spring I worked in a factory with 60 year old men and women that could barely do their factory jobs NOW.
They are worried if they can make it to 65 much less another two years. Physical jobs are too hard for some elderly people to keep doing.
Social Security was never meant to be a retirement plan but that’s exactly how it’s used by companies. Just like 401K is today. How many companies offere retirement plans today? Even in the last few years of looking for work, I have seen companies flat out abandon 401k matches.
Food stamps also need to be more workable to the elderly. For instance $200 a month is more than enough to feed one person. But the more money you make suddenly you’re reduced. A minimum wage job in Illinois can wipe out your food stamps allotment.
If you want to raise the retirement age, be fair about it. Don’t start at say 35 where people have been paying into it for a decade. Start at say 18 NOW and raise it from there.
(That’s not exactly fair as some 18 year olds have been working for a few years, but you see my point)
The easiest way to effect change is to simply make all elected officials live off of the plans they pass. I’ve wondered how good care Arizona Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords would have gotten had see been a Mexican from the 'hood? Perhaps the same, I don’t know, but it does make you stop and think
My colleagues and I have jokingly proposed mandatory universal SS benefits beginning at birth. Set benefits low enough to encourage seeking employment, recoup them through payroll taxes. Think of the administrative savings if there were no need to determine eligibility! Could basically eliminate the entire SSA (single largest gov’t employer behind the military) other than a skeleton staff to process the payments, and just beef up the IRS a bit to ensure income is reported and taxes are collected. 
Agree. I (and most other wage earners) will have put in something like 6-7% of every dollar I’ve ever earned in my life. Why shouldn’t I get my fair share back, even if I waste it on greens fees and caviar? The promise of SS is that we will get back our fair share.
If the government wants to create a fund that pays people who have failed (for whatever reason) to prepare for their late unemployed years then I won’t have a problem with that. We can call it welfare.
Yeah, but how come that didn’t apply to our great grandparents, who began drawing immediately when SSA was enacted despite never contributing a cent? Or disabled folk who draw more than they ever paid in. Or disabled kids…
Which is one reason I suggested revisiting disability, which currently finds older people disabled if they are no longer eleigible to perform their exertionally demanding past work, but remain capable of less demanding work. And considers a person to be “of advanced age” at 55.
I think a lot of people misrepresent SS when they attempt to simply state what it is or is not, and what are or are not its goals and purposes. Pick up a copy of the Social Security Act some time. It is a frigging BEAST, which is IMPOSSIBLE to read it as a coherent whole with every individual provision consistent with every other. This is to be expected, because it was not written at one time, but has been continually changed over 75 years for countless diverse reasons.
The Social Security program does not have one clearly identifiable purpose or problem - there is no single simple solution for addressing its shortcomings.
End the cap on maximum benefits and reduce payments to people who have more than a set amount of outside income.
In another thread I saw that we aren’t supposed to say “Social Security is a Ponzi scheme” so I’ll just say, back in the day, someone in the government must have said “that Ponzi guy just thinks too small.”
My changes have to do with funding Social Security.
[ol]
[li]Remove the cap on earnings = more money in the fund[/li][li]Tweak what is considered earnings (capital gains, etc. - if it’s more than you had yesterday, and you can spend it - it’s earnings) = more money in the fund[/li][li]Raise minimum wage (hasn’t kept up with real dollar inflation) = more money in the fund[/li][/ol]
I want all you youngsters to make sure you pay for mine, and then I think you should concentrate on how to get your children to pay for yours.
I am kidding, a little, I think. But if you want a summation of how the voting public thinks, I’m pretty close.
I LIKE it!
I’m not sure a meaningful correlation can be made, but I often note that many of the people who currently are clamoring to receive “their” benefits which “they paid for”, are also eager to pay as little tax as possible on money they or their parents might inherit from previous gnerations who received more SS than they ever paid for. If we are going to change it so that one only gets what they paid in, maybe we should instigate some retroactive collections.
REALLY close IMO - and not limited to SS. 
And one more complication I’ve been giving WAY too much thought to lately, I’ve been wondering about the extent to which DIB and SSI programs are intended to serve as a substitute for nonexistant universal public health benefits/facilities. Back in the 80s we decided to dismantle so many treatment progams/facilities - these days we find it easier and cheaper to simply cut the unhealthy a check.
This argument still bugs me whenever I see it. From that site:
Um, what? A private insurance company invests premiums in U.S. Treasury bonds, and we call this a ‘conservative investment’. (In the sense of low risk, low return.) The SSA invests premiums in U.S. Treasury bonds, and it’s ‘outright thievery’. I’m really having trouble seeing the difference …
To the OP: I voted on raising the minimum retirement age, and increasing the inputs–preferably by raising the cap on the payroll tax. I don’t support means testing, especially if we raise that cap–that would really be a kick in the nuts to your top wage earners.
Yeah, that’s why I ignored it.