The boomers will soon start collecting Social Security and then later Medicare. There will be a huge influx and it will be expensive. Then they will start to die off. Slowly at first then more rapidly. After about 20 years the problem will be over. Birthrates and Social Security will be down to normal again. So what do we do with all the surplus money in 2040?
Pay off the debt we incurred to give the boomers their benefits in the first place.
Assuming there will be any kind of surplus, just leave it where it is so the system remains viable just that much longer.
Oh my God, you are just so kyoot! You think there will be surplus money in a government program! Aren’t you adorable!
Sorry for the sarcasm, but they haven’t been able to keep from spending the “surplus” that was supposed to pay for the BB ahead of time already, what makes you think that there will be a “surplus” after the fact?
We raised rates and cut benefits in the 80’s to build a SS surplus to pay for the boomers, presumably when the boomers die we’ll do some combination of upping benefits and cutting payments, depending on the demographics, political situation and financial outlook. Honestly it doesn’t really seem possible to make a meaningful prediction this far out.
Who knows, but I doubt that we’ll see another population surge, so there isn’t really much sense in continuing to build up a surplus after the boomers die. If recent trends are any indication, the US population will remain flat or shrink.
You are assuming they will all die off (well, you are assuming several things, the biggest is that SS will actually survive that long). Recent advances in medicine and biotech leads me to believe that this assumption may be premature.
Don’t count your dead BB’ers until they are buried…
(I seriously doubt the system will hold together until 2040 regardless. If by some miracle it does manage to shuffle along until 2040 when the BB’s are all safely tucked away in their graves I have my doubts we are going to get some kind of death dividend from this…)
-XT
As one of the very last baby boomers, I welcome your optimism that the program will survive that long.
You couldn’t possibly be more mistaken. At current tax rates, Social Security will move from surplus to deficit in 2017 and remain in deficit forever. People are working fewer years and living more years than ever before, and the lower birth rate will effect the number of workers as well as the number of retirees.
See the slight lessening in the huge gap between outlays and revenue between 2030 and 2040? That’s the effect of the baby boom die-off.
Assuming that the gov’t pays back the money it borrowed from SS Trust (it will), the program is funded through something like 2042. And given the recent political resistance to Bush’s attempt to make even small changes to the program, with his own party in charge of Congress, I doubt a wholesale ending of the program will ever be politically feasible, at least so long as the Babyboomers are around and still able to get themselves to the polls.
As it should be, they paid into the system, they should be able to get their money back out.
Its good to be a boomer. You live forever.
I am a boomer, and I have every intention of being alive in 2040 and for some years beyond.
If there’s any surplus, I’ll use it up.
You will be Soylent Green.
That’s not the question. The question is usually asked by people like myself, I’m 33 and have been paying into Social Security for 15 years now.
However, the odds of me getting my money back when I’m old are pretty slim.
My generation isn’t as big as Boomers, so I imagine I (and the rest of us) are screwed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6827519/
The Social Security crisis is pretty much a propaganda move by those who want to privatize it. It is a huge pot and if they can administer and control it,the payoff would be enormous. If it needs any help it can be easily done. There is no crisis. Bush said it was done in 2 years when he became Texas Governor. He came in politics with a hard on for government programs. He wanted to allow financial corporations to take it over. You will get Social Security.
Gonzo…did you actually read that article? It’s not saying what you claim it’s saying. Maybe you should try and put in quotes from the cites you give that illustrate the point you are trying to make instead of giving a drive by link…
I believe this is what you were looking for…but again, it doesn’t say what you are claiming it says:
What this article is saying (and guess what? There is debate as to how accurate it is. Note the lack of cites in the article? It’s not nearly so cut and dried) is that Bush et al is EXAGGERATING (gee, who’da thunk it considering the source?)…not that there is no problem at all.
Personally, without major changes of some kind or another to the system I can’t see how it could limp along until the 2040’s. People are living longer these days…and I have serious doubts that trend is going to reverse. My dad is a boomer…and he will be around 100 in 2040 assuming he lives that long. More people ARE living to be that age today however so it’s not like this is an impossibility. And 32 years from now I’ll be retired as well in theory.
Or you could hold your breath for the death dividend when all the boomers shuffle off this mortal coil I suppose and suddenly SS is back to working in the black…
-XT
The problem with Social Security isn’t its funding or benefits (small adjustments to the tax rate or retirement age will fix that), but the fact that the government keeps borrowing from the fund. Yes, it will be paid back, but that means the SS fund will no longer be buying a piece of the federal debt. And that will force nasty economic choices on us: 1) sell more debt to everyone else, 2) increase tax revenues, and/or 3) reduce other programs.
The structure of the federal budget is and has been pushing some hard choices into the future for a long time. At least we’ll get to watch the retirement bomb hit Europe before us. Maybe that will wake up our government to make changes before we’re forced to.
…and even then, a stake through the heart would be a good idea, just to be sure…
[QUOTE=xtisme]
Gonzo…did you actually read that article? It’s not saying what you claim it’s saying. Maybe you should try and put in quotes from the cites you give that illustrate the point you are trying to make instead of giving a drive by link…
I believe this is what you were looking for…but again, it doesn’t say what you are claiming it says:
What this article is saying (and guess what? There is debate as to how accurate it is. Note the lack of cites in the article? It’s not nearly so cut and dried) is that Bush et al is EXAGGERATING (gee, who’da thunk it considering the source?)…not that there is no problem at all.
Personally, without major changes of some kind or another to the system I can’t see how it could limp along until the 2040’s. People are living longer these days…and I have serious doubts that trend is going to reverse. My dad is a boomer…and he will be around 100 in 2040 assuming he lives that long. More people ARE living to be that age today however so it’s not like this is an impossibility. And 32 years from now I’ll be retired as well in theory.
Or you could hold your breath for the death dividend when all the boomers shuffle off this mortal coil I suppose and suddenly SS is back to working in the black…
-XT[/ Back when Bush first pushed for privatizing SS,it was shown that it was solvent til 2047. Bush and his inculcating is just a way to make people believe it is failing. He said it was dead in 2 years back in 1995 when he was in Texas. He is no more believable now.
I realize you reject what does not meet your preconceptions but read a little. This admin is full of lies in order to privatize. Earlier argument from 2 years ago provided plenty of evidence .
That’s not really a problem with SS though, its a problem with the general fund. I seriously doubt that if we hadn’t sold all the debt to ourselves, we still wouldn’t have run up the same deficits.
Perhaps if instead of tax cuts, we’d put some of our current tax revenues into some sort of lock-box…
There were proposals to put Social Security in a lock box Our politicians could not leave their hands off it. It was used to create the idea we were more solvent than we actually are. But even so it is 22041 before it is a problem. But then it does not disappear. Reduced benefits of bout 75 percent will be available. This indicates some simple fixes can save it. But privatizing is not an option. letting these thieves get their hands on a pot like that would be stupid.