If you mean, it’s a wealth transfer mechanism, I would agree. However, if you means test it, it becomes obvious that it’s also a welfare system and would be more easily killed. Do you have any stats on the benefits to the program of means-testing out the top X percent? Because that percent will certainly be fairly small, right?
It doesn’t seem like it’s much of a benefit, but there are huge downsides.
I might fail a means test but my retirement was predicated on taking SS at 62 and if I live long enough I will have a chance of running out without it. Had I known it would be cut, I would have worked another few years. Of course, I have some margin but it really would screw my planning.
Would the means test be revisited every year?
Do 401k or other tax deferred holdings count or just regular investments? 401k increases aren’t taxable of course.
What about people whose wealth is mostly tied up in their home and does the paper value of the house count? The typical retired professional would refinance their house after the 401k runs out. If so, what happens in a housing crash?
Since as far as I know there’s no current proposal for a means test, there’s no answer to any of those questions.
As near as I can tell, the current proposals are to raise the income cap on which social security is withheld; with some proposing to raise the age for being eligible for benefits; and some proposing cutting benefits in general. I’m not sure how we got onto discussing a means test, except that I think someone in the thread said that raising the income cap without raising the top level of benefits would be something like one.
SSI, or supplemental social security, is means-tested, and again this is already done by the SSA; so means testing ordinary social security benefits wouldn’t require them to do anything they’re not already entirely capable of doing. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything remotely resembling a detailed proposal to change ordinary Social Security to a means-tested program. If somebody is suggesting this, please let me know where; maybe I’ve just missed it.
Pretty sure I raised it, simply b/c IMHO is ought to be a part of the solution. But, like I said, most folk around here - and most folk who are influential in politics - have the means and disagree.
@Dinsdale made that suggestion several posts ago.
Thanks, both of you. That answers why we’re talking about it in this thread.
Is anybody in Congress, or in a position to strongly influence Congress, proposing such a plan?
I don’t think so mainly because it would be political suicide so it is a bit of a drift from the original topic.
Bernie says that if we raise the cap from $147k to $250k that we can give all SSI recipients an extra $200/month and keep things solvent for 75 years. That isn’t super unreasonable. There were a few years in my career when my last couple of paychecks were over the limit at the time. I would have been cool with it.
If that’s true (i.e., the math works), it’s a great solution. Hell, go tot $300k.
I likewise favor some age-limit boosting for some recipients (and I’m walking the talk, as I’m in the post-1960 cohort for whom “full retirement age” was raised to 67). Is there a chance that the age limit could be handled differentially for desk workers and manual workers, as I believe pension reformers in France are advocating?
I guess I did not understand the OP as framing a taut, well informed proposition.
Repubs say Dems want to take the SS you deserve/paid into.
Current benefits are paid by present workers.
Maybe the retirement age should be raised.
Doesn’t take too much of a current to drift from THAT! 
How about exclude the 1st $50k, then tax from $50k to no limit?
Or tax $0 to $150k, exclude $150-250k, then tax from $250k to no limit?
Plenty of options.
I like that idea. Or from 50K to whatever limit is necessary to fund the system; automatically inflation-adjusted on both ends, and additionally adjustable on the top end if/as needed.
Is that the employee’s contribution or the employer’s as well?
If the employer’s as well, you are going to get a whole lot of support from industries that pay less than 50k.
I would imagine a large bulk of the money comes from zero to 50k earnings. All workers are in there somewhere, even those who exceed it. I like the idea of giving a break to lower end wage earners, but I doubt the math would pencil out just be eliminating the cap.
Whoops; and also an incentive to pay less than that. You have a point.
Just want to point out that taxation of some of the SS benefits is a kind of means test, in that if you have enough income you basically have to give some of your benefits back to the government through taxation.
As to another of your good points, I found when I researched SS before I got it that it is quite progressive, in that lower income levels get a better return than higher ones. I’m fine with that also.
It’s not a means test. It’s an earnings test. You could be spending everything you earn and be broke.
Of course we are not the only country dealing with the political unpopularity of changing these sorts of systems. France is having its version, with major protests.
Not sure I understand the French system though. Anyone here able to help with a compare and contrast?
Or with a place like Sweden or Finland even? Those seem to be models that work even if they are not so likely to sell here.
Thank you for pointing out this inaccurate terminology. An actual means test–as is done with Medicaid applicants–is much more obtrusive and draconian.
With current numbers, and really bad math, SS would be about 20% of my retirement income. Does that make me bad for wanting it? I feel, sociologically, that it brings a lot of good and benefit to the lower class, but if it’s going to be legislated away to the point where the poor won’t live long enough to use it, or insolvent so that the past 30 years of my contribution gives me no benefit, we’ll I kinda have a problem with that. Call it a tax rather than a benefit, and keep the republican fingers out of it.