I keep hearing how SS may be bankrupt by the time I am ready to stop working and that tough choices have to be made.
I also know from watching West Wing that SS the 3rd rail of politics (“touch it and you die!”)
So I wanted to poll my fellow dopers to see where they stand!
I believe that social security will exist when I am old enough to collect it, however I also believe that the means testing will have reached a level where I will not qualify to recieve the money that I have paid into the system.
My own opinion! We should raise retirement age and scale back benefits.
I have been paying into it for 28 years and I will denfinately be affected by this, but I think sacrifices must be made.
Modify it - don’t raise the minimum retirement age (it’s already next to impossible for people that age to find jobs if they lose theirs), but re-jigger the formulas so that they are even more progressive, i.e. higher earners contribute more and get proportionately less back down the road. Raise the level of earnings subject to FICA, by a lot.
Overhauling SSI would be a good start. Ban all convicted felons from drawing SSI, for one. Do away with SSI checks for kids (keep their medical coverage, though). Those two things right there would save an enormous amount of cash.
Like that’s gonna happen … that would require balls, and nobody in Washington, Democrat or Republican, has a pair.
That said, I voted modify, raise retirement age, scale back benefits and allow some private options.
That’s not gonna happen either, of course. SS is gonna go bust.
Overhauling SSI would not, in fact, be a good start. It is not funded from the Social Security Trust Fund. Common misconception.
So why not overhaul SSI and pour the money that was funding it (some of it, anyway) and dump it into SSTF?
Someone’s going to get hurt by this, so it might was well be me. Despite dumping thousands and thousands of dollars into the system over the years, I say just scrap the whole thing now. I’d take the loss; the money’s already gone, and some idiot is eventually going to exclude me via means-testing anyway.
Raise the minimum age to at least 70. The average life expectancy in 1940 (not long after SS was enacted) was 63 years old. It’s now about 78.
Apply vigorous means testing. Anyone with income that is 300% or below of the poverty line can get full benefits. Phase out benefits to people with higher income, ending at 800% of the poverty line.
Hey look, I fixed Social Security! 
I’m a professional in my early thirties. I expect to receive less than 10% of the amount of money that I pay into Social Security during my lifetime.
So… if someone makes a mistake at 20 you’re going to deprive them of retirement 45 years down the road even if they never, ever break another law? Dude, that’s harsh!
And yes, I personally know three people who were convicted of felonies between 18 and 20, served there time, are now in their 50’s, and are upstanding citizens.
There are 2 types of SS - title 2 and title 16. And when I say “SS” in this case I mean SS disability, not retirement (2 totally different critters).
Title 2 is what you pay into when you work. Title 16 is means based only. You can be a convicted felon currently and draw both (you can even draw title 2, if you’re disabled, while in prison - however you can’t draw title 16 (SSI) while in prison). The only exception to this is if you became disabled during the commission of felony (ex: rob a bank, cop shoots you in the spine to stop you and you’re paralyzed for life - no check for you).
And yes, I stand by what I said. If someone is a convicted felon and has enough work quarters to draw SS (title 2) - fine, I don’t see the problem considering they paid into the system. Convicted felon and they’ve never worked (or stayed out of prison) long enough to pay into the system? I see no reason why they should be able to draw SSI.
I can’t believe we have at this point 14 people that think keeping it as it is can be done.
But that’s not what you said - you said no convicted felon ever, you didn’t say “well, OK, you’re reformed and you’ve paid in, it’s OK for you now”.
So which are you standing by?
That, and if a “convicted felon” is released past 65 what the hell do you expect them to do? Starve? No one is going to hire them. If they have no means of putting a roof over their head or food on their table you’re practically demanding they either commit crime or simply die in the gutter. Is that reasonable?
Get rid of it.
I’m in favor of the government providing for people who are born without the ability to work. But the entire idea of being alive is to remain so, and if one is successful, then at some point they get too old to work. These days that takes 60 years or so. If someone can’t find the time in 60 years to save for retirement, then they can try to get support from private charity, but it’s ridiculous to force other people to pay their way.
ETA: I don’t think it should just be scrapped wholesale tomorrow–those who have been promised benefits should still receive those benefits. But we need to turn off the light on the cashier stand and shut it down when we’ve stopped paying the last person in line.
Deprive them of retirement? No, not at all. He would deprive them of social security.
You are making the very very common liberal mistake of assuming that if the government won’t do it, it won’t get done.
Because it won’t. A substantial portion of the elderly population will just be left to freeze and starve to death on the street. That after all is exactly why SS was created in the first place.
Actually my exact words were: “Overhauling SSI would be a good start. Ban all convicted felons from drawing SSI, for one.” Seeing as SSI is the program that is means based only (and has nothing to do with paying into the system), I’m not sure how, after I thoroughly explained what I meant in my last post, you somehow read this as “no convicted felon ever.”
I expect them to do what people who have managed to go through life and not commit a felony do - figure it out for themselves. It’s not society’s problem. People who are much younger than 65 that have committed felonies often have a great deal of trouble finding a job at all, much less a decent job. Should we give them checks, too?
I’m not “demanding” they either commit crime or die in the gutter - that’s their decision, just like it was their decision whether or not to commit a felony. Strangely given human survival instinct, and also given that prisons are, oh, horrible, I have a feeling the majority of them would indeed figure out a way to survive.
Modify- raise the age a little, slowly( and mostly for younger dudes, scaled as the age gets lower, so dudes who are already 55+ won;t have any more time to wait). Also, raise the maximum wages that are taxed. In a way, both of these are “keeping it as it is now” as both have been done several times before. So, just accellerate both a little.
Your reading of history is fallacious in at least two respects.
First, charities have indeed provided retirement for people before governments did. It is simply not the case that no charity ever provided retirement for a single poor person until the government came along and did it.
Second, you look at history as two periods: (i) the time before government provided social security and (ii) the time after. And somehow the fact that the government started providing social security you score as a point in favor of government-provided social security. But what about the first time period? The government was against social security before it was for it–why is that an argument in favor of the idea that only government can provide social security?
Exactly. The length of the average retirement is far greater than ever, and getting longer. There is no reason why the average healthy person can’t work at least 5 more years. They should begin adding 1 year to the retirement age every other year, for 20 years.