Baby Boomers and Social Security

[BOSSHOG]

I am a baby boomer and have every intention of getting my cut of that pie. Much has been said about the ravages and destruction that evil baby boomers will wrought on Social Security as they age and start dipping their wick so to speak. (The destruction has already started.) We will take out such a big hunk of the social security pie leaving nothing for anyone else. Did we not put in the biggest hunk of the pie? Are the amounts of our contributions not relevant in the conversation about the devastation of the amounts of our withdrawals?

[rfranklin]

1. Your share bought new weapons during Ronnie Raygun's...

effort to prove that "deficits don't matter" (according to Dickie Cheney). and all th ey left you was a worthless IOU, says George Bush.

[Warpy]

2. The only crisis is a manufactured one

in that there will no longer be a 40-50% overpayment rate that Congress can rob to fund its tax cuts to the rich and corporate.

Social security is insurance, and was designed to be a pay as you go system. When boomers retire, they'll be supported by about as many workers as supported retirees in the 1950s. That story about fewer workers supporting all us greedy old folks is just that, a story, pure fiction.

Congress has robbed boomers since Reagan jacked up the payments six times between 1983 and 1988, using our money to fund reckless tax cuts to fat cat contributors instead of using it to shore up the system like they said they would.

Don't fall for their bullshit. Don't let them raise rates, don't let them lower benefits. Force them to raise taxes on the people they robbed us to fatten.

Only in that way will you save the system for yourselves and ensure justice for us.

[BOSSHOG]

4. I am a total failure at sarcasm Warpy

I'm onboard with you 100%. I just chuckle when I see the handwringing about the damage which will be wrought when baby boomers get older day by day. Its like a bad halloween movie. I wonder what the story will be when we baby boomers are all dead.

[damntexdem]

8. Hey, if there ARE fewer workers, there will be some reasons:

(1) outsourcing of so much work elsewhere; and
(2) refusal to legalize millions of willing workers who lack documents to be in the U.S.

[Justitia]

16. Amen. -eom

[truedelphi]

3. R Franklin is probably right - 12 yrs from now - I wonder how my front lawn will

Look with a DU hardened tank sitting out in front of it as my payback for the decades of paying in.

[endarkenment]

5. I've paid in for 30+ years and intend to take out as much as I can.

Most of that time I've maxed out my contributions. I actually have no problem with removing the cap, but that is the only 'fix' I'm good with. What I have a problem with are the scams intended to wreck SS through privatization. What I have a problem with are the large numbers of peasants otherwise just like me who are somehow confused about their class and keep thinking that they are going to get to live in the castle. On the plus side, as long as we boomers don't get totally befuddled, we should be able to vote down any and all attempts by the wreckers schemers and grifters to mess with our pensions or destroy the pension program for the youngsters.

[elehhhhna]

15. start at 62. Waiting is a bad bet.

[Nay]

17. Yep. All the CPAs say to retire at 62 for the best SS deal. Don't wait,

and don't do it any earlier than that.

[shanti]

19. i fully intend to do just that

wait? forget about it!

[TahitiNut]

24. Yup Did that. It's actually simple arithmetic.

I calculated (simple division) how many monthly checks it'd take at the slightly increased benefit to make up for the check I'd miss in merely a one month delay in applying. It worked out to over thirteen years.

Let's say it was $1,295 vs. $1,303
Divide $1,295 by $8 ... that's more than 161 months, or over 13.5 years.

If I thought the breakeven point was ten years, I'd have to expect living that long or longer. I don't.

[damntexdem]

6. I paid my dues, I'll take my pie.

Raise the cap on income taxed for Social Security -- just raising it a few hundred thousand from $97,500 would make the Trust Fund secure.

And if the U.S. doesn't honor the bonds securing the Trust Fund, don't worry about Social Security, because the world economic system would go belly up. Think the sub-prime mortgage collapse is an economic nightmare? Imagine a world in which the U.S. government made itself into a sub-prime borrower! Social Security would be the least of our worries. (Of course, we may be headed there anyway.)

[sandnsea]

7. Why isn't any candidate telling the truth

Have any of them stood up and reminded America that the surpluses came from FICA, by and large. That's our money they gave away to the wealthy in tax cuts. Why isn't anybody standing up for us.

[VP505]

9. The Republics

have wanted for a long time now to eliminate SS, they keep whining and making up stories about all the bad things that will happen to us is we keep paying out as it always has. If Congress would raise the upper limit and stop looting the fund the problem would be solved. Once we allow them to start tinkering with privatizing or some of the other nutty ideas the Republics have had it will only be a short time before they try to kill the program outright.

[BrklynLib at work]

10. Yup. I am one of them thar folks as well. Spent plenty of years putting in the $$$, so I intend

to take it out as well.
I sure wish someone would stand up and shout the truth about the SS System, and it's NOT going bankrupt!!!
The sad part is the many selfish younger folks out there that do not see any point to contributing today for the benefit of others who came before them, even though, eventually, others will be doing the same for them.

[BOSSHOG]

11. If a conservative says its so, its not

Bitching about social security is a right wing recruting tool for morons like bush. I've shoveled money into for 35 years. Yo neocons, say ya wanna revolution???

[Parche]

12. Hey Boss

"Why do you hate Social Security" :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl::hi:

These consitpated conservatives have heard nothing but gloom and doom from Bush on how it
needs to be changed all of a sudden............not so....leave it the way it is....
Everything with Bush is "All of a sudden"

All of a sudden we have terror
All of a sudden we have social security issues
All of a sudden we have Iraq
All of a sudeen we have Iran


:hi:

"Is this the day? Is this the beginning of the end? There is no time to wonder, no time to ask, 'Why is it happening, why is it finally happening?' There is time only for fear, for the piercing pain of panic. Do we pray? Or do we merely run now, and pray later? Will there be a later? Or is this the day?"

[BOSSHOG]

13. I'm just a hater Parche

but I do love my World War II Submariners and their awesome exploits!

bush bad! bush supporters incredibly bad.

[SteelPenguin]

14. Fuck that, the system is broken

I'll get mine misses the entire point of the Soc Sec system. When you were paying your taxes when you were twenty, you weren't saving up for now, you were paying the old people then. Now I, and the rest of the workers are going to be paying for the babyboomers. Most of whom seem to be doing dick about fixing the system so that we'll be assured of somethign when WE retire.

Instead we keep being told that the baby boomers will 'get theirs' and then the rest of us youngins will be shit out of luck.

Once again the Baby Boomer attitude fucks over the later generations. Rather than figuring out any kind of sacrifice to help save the system they want to get their cut of the pie. Fuck the rest. Go by an SUV and fuck over the planet environmentally as well while you're at it.

Our country, and planet, is screwed unless the people in charge (read the Baby Boomers at the moment) start thinking about the future 1,2 or even 3 generations in advance and how they'll be affected by the actions of the present, instead of just an "hey I paid, I should get something for it. I don't care if the people paying now won't." attitude.

[ieoeja]

20. Whoever is telling you that is lying. n/t

[SteelPenguin]

29. Link?

Every economist I've read on the subject has said it's a problem to one degree or another.

[earth mom]

21. Your post is totally offensive. The boomers are NOT at fault for what's happening in this country.

It's the rich elite bastards who have done everything to wage class warfare on the middle class and the poor.

If you aren't rich, then YOU should FULLY support that every middle class & poor person in this country get the fair share of what they were promised & guaranteed for all the years they paid into the system.

You can't pick & choose who gets this kind of retirement when it was set up in the first place for EVERYONE.

You should have learned this in civics class in high school. Jeez. :eyes:

[SteelPenguin]

30. Where did I say that?

I think Bosshog should get his, and you should get yours, and little sick jimmy should have sChip, and the whole shebang. I have no problem paying more taxes to help protect the poor and middle class, to provide more social security, more help, more benefits.

I just don't have a problem with someone saying that they paid theirs and they'll get theirs, when doing so, based on everything I've read, shows that I'll never see a dime of the cash I'm putting in month after month. Why should my parents and grandparents be able to say "I'll get mine" with a smile on their face, when based on everythign I've read I wont' get mine.

That's not cool.

If the point of the post is that there's no problem and won't be any problem with social security, this is news to me.

[BOSSHOG]

23. Thanks for proving the point that youth is wasted on the young

MY attitude, I gave. Whats wrong with me getting? As you age and become wiser your attitude will no doubt change. Those yet born will be bitching about your attitude 40 years from now when I'm dead and cremated and you are living the social security high life.

[SteelPenguin]

28. You should get, and so should I

I just don't agree the system isn't broken.

I think you should get what you deserve, but not at the cost of me not getting what I deserve. How is that fair? Why should I make 100% of the sacrifice instead of us sharing it?

That's my problem. Explain to me (or just link) something that will show that SS is not broken, as this is the first I've heard that it's all a lie and that the system is fine. Every economist I've read shows that the system needs to be fixed. (not that it's a hard fix)

[MiniMe]

44. Social Security is NOT broken

It needs some tweaking, but it is not broken. The fastest way to bankrup SS is personal accounts, that will bankrupt the system as soon as they enact it, and then some.

Social Security was never supposed to be a retirement plan, it was meant to be a supplemental income for your old age. A lot of people were promised pensions by their companies, they even gave up some pay raises or had reduced pay raises in order to get that retirement. And now, companies are filing to do away with those pensions. Those people had counted on, and been promised those pensions, and because they gave up some pay raises, may not have saved as much as they otherwise would. You also have people who worked for a company like Enron, and lost everything.

At 20, I never thought Social Security would be around when I retired either, but I paid into it. Guess what? Its still here. I am 50 now, and it is too late for me to change my retirement planning dramatically. I am probably in the age group that would be hurt most right now without that supplement. They only need to fix the withholdings, to me, that would be by toying with the cap on contributions. Either raise the 90k ceiling, or create a donut hole where you don't pay anything from 100k to 500k, and then start contributing again.

[Romulox]

45. This is not about the foolishness of youth. It's about ACTUARIAL TABLES. nt

[madrchsod]

25. you are cracking me up...really

:rofl:

[SteelPenguin]

31. How so?

Everything I've been told and read is that I won't see a dime of social security unless the system is changed. Why should I not be angry at people unwilling to change it just so 'they can get theirs'?

[TahitiNut]

26. So, what you're claiming is that investing in the next generation isn't worth it???

Here's how it works ... when people are working and (often) raising a family, they can be active at work , making working conditions better and supporting unions and, at the same time, choosing to pay for their kids' education, health, and shelter. Or... they can invest less in their kids and more in some 'ownership' interest that hopes to collect from the labors of others and build a "nest egg." They short-change the NEXT generation and, hoping that "nest egg" survives, and try to live off the labors of others based on the "ownership entitlement."

Instead, the Social Security system is based on the notion that the current working generations are both supporting the older generation that made it possible to work in a safe, decent-paying job and investing in the development of the next generation. It's not the "ownership entitlement" but the working generation taking care of their parents and children.

Alternatively, we could devolve to "third world social security" ... spit out 6-8 kids and hope that one or two survive and take care of us in our senior years ... working in the rice paddy.

The total, abject idiocy of people that think there's some "free ride" is annoying as hell.

[SteelPenguin]

32. Uh, yeah, I know that

I sort of cover that in my first paragraph. I get that my taxes now pay for the benefits of the peopel currently and they're not saving it for me. I'm not an idiot. Heck, I'm willing to pay more if it'll give health insurance and social security to everyone forever.

Everything I've read and been told though is that the system is going to collapse under it's own weight and that I won't see a dime later on. I have no problem paying even MORE right now so Bosshog can get his, I just have a problem with the 'theres no problem attitude' which based on my information is going to leave me working till I die with no social security.

And no, i'm not some Bush plan idiot. I like the system we have as long as it's solvent. I do NOT want a government savings account. I got no savings to give. I need to know that the taxes I'm paying now, even if increased, will ensure I'm not working myself to death at age 85 or sponging off my grandchildren.

[TahitiNut]

34. Well, then you're reading and listening to the wrong things.

The Social Security system is sound. If there's one and only one thing that's a problem right now it's the last 20-30 years of suppression of the "bottom 90%" of payroll jobs. Those are the jobs that pay for Social Security. It does NOTHING for Social Security to increase the pay of a CEO. Nothing. It does all kinds of good to increase the federal minimum wage. Pay attention to how the "bottom 90%" of payroll jobs are getting a smaller and smaller piece of the "economic pie." THAT'S the rape that's assumed to continue in the projections of shortfalls in the benefits in 30 to 50 years from now. Even then, the system as it's currently going will pay 75% of the projected benefits.

If anything is "busted" it's the payroll wages for the "bottom 90%"."

STOP trafficking in human labor. STOP off-shoring jobs. TAX unearned income at rates equal to earned income. STOP the "war on the middle class."

[Romulox]

42. No offense, but young people are the *most* effected by declining wages, lower earning potential

and the collapse of social safety nets.

It sounds to me that you are blaming young people for the world older generations have handed them...

[KoKo]

37. it's in the RW's/heritage Foundation...etc. Interests... to make SURE you Believe that...

They leave out that Congress under Clinton made sure SS insolvency was addressed. If the BUSH CRIME FAMILY USED IT for WAR...then our DEMS need to talk about it. But, why would i think our DEMS wouldn't want to use the SAME Scare Tactics as Repugs? Because the NEST ADMINISTRATION is going to BORROW FROM SSFUNDS just like ALL the OTHERS DID!

SS is the BEST SYSTEM we have. Stock Market 'ups and downs" don't matter...because you will get what you paid into along with what you were promised. That the GUBBMITT STOLE funds from SS for YEARS TO FUND WARS AND WHAT NOT...is the ISSUE... NOT that SS is INSOLVENT because of BOOMERS ....because the NEW IMMIGRANTS make up for the lack of new population of Americans after the BOOMERS start to cash in.

The "Supply SIDERS" were careful to allow all the new Immigrants in...so they could fund WARS while they Sound a FALSE ALERT ...LIKE SHOUTING WAR WITH IRAN...to confuse younger folks into thinking that SS was insolvent. THEY LIE about EVERYTHING.... There's money for SS...and they need to FIND WHERE THEY PUT IT...and it's in the IRAQ WAR/DEFENSE DEPT...BUDGETS!

just saying....don't believe that Newt Gingrich/Grover Norquist crap any more than you would trust Chalibi on what's going on in Iraq as a GURU for YOUR INTERESTS...

[Romulox]

43. Congress DID NOT "make sure SS insolvency was addressed" during the Clinton admin

Clinton's "balanced budgets" were balanced only by siphoning Social Security "surplus" monies into the general fund. Actual dollars collected via FICA taxes were spent and converted to mere IOUs.

You don't remember Gore's "lockbox"?

[bain_sidhe]

36. Ah! You have a key misunderstanding here...

you wrote:

When you were paying your taxes when you were twenty, you weren't saving up for now, you were paying the old people then.

Not so. Starting in the early 80s, Boomers were paying for BOTH -- benefits for current retirees, AND "pre-paying" for their OWN benefits. Here are some key grafs from the Thom Hartmann article mentioned elsewhere in this thread:

Reagan got Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alan Greenspan together to form a commission on Social Security reform, along with a few other politicians and economists, and they recommend a near-doubling of the Social Security tax on the then-working Boomers. That tax created - for the first time in history - a giant savings account that Social Security could use to pay for the Boomers' retirement.

This was a huge change. Prior to this, Social Security had always paid for today's retirees with income from today's workers (it still is today). The Boomers were the first generation that would pay Social Security taxes both to fund current retirees and save up enough money to pay for their own retirement. And, after the Boomers were all retired and the savings account - called the "Social Security Trust Fund" - was all spent, the rabbit would have finished its journey through the python and Social Security could go back to a "pay as you go" taxing system.

But what happened to all that money, you say? Well, as Hartmann explains:

But Reagan still had a problem. His tax cuts for the wealthy - even when moderated by subsequent tax increases - weren't generating enough money to invest properly in America's infrastructure, schools, police and fire departments, and military. The country was facing bankruptcy.

No problem, suggested Greenspan. Just borrow the Boomer's savings account - the money in the Social Security Trust Fund - and, because you're borrowing "government money" to fund "government expenditures," you don't have to list it as part of the deficit. Much of the deficit will magically seem to disappear, and nobody will know what you did for another 50 years when the Boomers begin to retire 2015.

Really, you should read the article. It explains a lot.

http://www.buzzflash.com/hartmann/05/07/har05007.html

[endarkenment]

41. Lucky for you we boomers will vote to make sure you get your pension too.

Although if enough of you yutes drink the koolaide on this, even our demographic bulge will not be enough throw weight to keep your pensions for you. Fool.

[earth mom]

18. People gotta stop buying the meme that Social Security is broken. It is NOT. nt

[madrchsod]

22. i just got my social security update....

looks like i`m working till 67. i`m one of those who lost tons of money when those good paying union jobs went overseas and now stuck with bad health and temp jobs...now if i had universal health care and some cash, i`d go back into my own business again.

[ThomWV]

27. All that money that you have been paying in was borrowed and spent faster than it was taken in.

Joke's on you.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

39. Trusts can NOT be borrowed and spent upon. The joke is on you!

Please, do not allow corporate TAIL-WAGGERS wag your tail.

Do NOT allow them to confuse PUBLIC trusts or debt with private assets and debt.

Otherwise, YOU are being wagged right into a privatization of YOUR LIFE with all your family and friends' money going into corporate pockets!

THEY ARE SCHEMING YOU INTO GIVING Y/OUR MONEY TO THEM, TO THEM, TO THEM!!!

Gawdigetsofrustratedwhengoodpeoplearebeingfuckedbynastygreedytyrants!

[PoiBoy]

33. I suggest you read this article by Thom Hartmann...

http://www.buzzflash.com/hartmann/05/07/har05007.html

I heard Thom explain this on his radio program one day a few weeks ago. I'm still looking for that episode in the archives, but I googled the internets and found this article in which he lays it out quite like I wasn't aware. And judging from some previous posts most of us aren't very aware of the details...

Hopefully it will explain what has happened to us, and what we are in store for... and who's to blame.

It's playing right into the RepubliCons hands to believe that somehow we Boomers are to blame for Social Security's financial woes. Read the article.. do your own research... Thom Hartmann is a Progressive Historian and rarely wrong... IMHO.

[TahitiNut]

35. In summary: It's NOT a "Social Security crisis" - It's a Federal Debt crisis!

Look. There was NEVER any confusion that the Trust Fund would be invested in government debt instruments. In fact, the "gentleman's agreement" was that the EXTERNAL federal debt would be reduced and, at the peak of the trust fund, be nearly zero. The understanding was that the INTEREST paid on the Debt would increasingly be invested in the Trust Fund" and, as the Trust Fund was paid out between 2015 and 2045, the Federal Debt would simultaneously be retired ... leaving both the Trust Fund AND the Debt at zero and the portion that taxpayers pay to subsidize the Debt (i.e interest) would also be gone. In that "ideal" forecast, the federal budget would be balanced and our fiscal condition healthy.

The problem ISN'T Social Security ... it's the FACT that the interest on the Federal Debt will increase as the debt held in the Trust Fund has to be covered by EXTERNAL debt at higher interest rates as the Trust Fund, as it was always intended, is depleted to pay those whose money was collected to pay for their own benefits.


The debt problem can be seen fairly easily in this graphic:


The orange area at the bottom, entitled "Held by Federal Government Accounts," represents primarily the debt held by the Social Security Trust Fund. The downwad slope during the Clinton years SHOULD have come down to the point of the orange area sometime around 2015-2020 ... and then along came George.

EVERY President, Republican and Democratic, from WW2 to Reagan, decreased the Federal Debt. Then along cam Reagan, Bush, and Bush ... who've fucked up the federal budget BIG TIME.

[KoKo]

38. Great Post..."Blame the Boomers" is big here on DU and amongst the RW!

And...since we know there are Campaign Ops that show up here during every election cycle it would seem that the 'Blame the Boomers' is the forerunner of the next invasion.

It's a BIG MEME to Blame BOOMERS FOR WAR...and the RISE OF THE REPUGS...and it's a Bad Call...and those of us who are here know it's FAKE! Covering up for another AGENDA...by those who keep at it ...blaming Boomers. It's a generation that spans over 20 YEARS! Not just some "slice" of an age group who were what the Right thinks were the "Dirty Hippies" who got Nixon Impeached and hung out in CA doing drugs, boinking each other, smoking hash and shooting and supporting Jane Fonda."

It's the Repug Myth ...they are now so far down the TRAIL OF UNBELIEVABILITY...they only have BOOMERS to trash! Pathetic they are! And we should see how they are "rats trying to jump the ship...but some just can't give up and will go down with it." :puke: on these "In Your FACE..Repug Tactics." They still think ...THEY RULE!

[raccoon]

47. Great post. Thank you! nt

[B Calm]

40. The republicans have been trying to destroy social security for

the past 25 years. They think by bankrupting the country and draining the social security funds, they will have millions of desperate, and hungry baby boomers to fire as cheap labor!

[The2ndWheel]

46. The Babyboom generation is the last one that is needed

They'll get what they earned by supporting the system all these years. But it's a different world when that generation fully retires.

We haven't yet had to deal with an aging/aged population in the modern world. With fewer people working, how do you pay for everything? Mass immigration? What happens to those developing countries who lose their best and brightest to a country(US, European countries) that requires growth? What happens when more people consume more? There are plenty of other questions to ask.

You don't get something without giving something up. Social Security won't last forever, and there will be a bill coming for that order. I'm 29, and I'm not bashing the babyboomers. Physical reality is just something that gets in the way of everything we try to do.