New Study Identifies Revenues for Doubling of Social Security Payout

[unhappycamper]

Instead of cutting back Social Security, what we need to do is expand it by doubling the individual payout.


New Study Identifies Revenues for Doubling of Social Security Payout
by Steven Hill
Published on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

For millions of Americans, the dream of a secure retirement has been threatened by the Great Recession. Since WWII, retirement has been conceived as a "three-legged stool," with the three legs being Social Security, pensions, and personal savings centered around homeownership.


But today most private sector employers have quit providing pensions, and state and local government’s public pensions are drastically underfunded. In addition, a collapsed housing and stock market, combined with increased inequality even before the Great Recession, have drastically reduced Americans’ personal savings.

In short, the "retirement stool" no longer is stable and secure, and suddenly Social Security, which always has been viewed as a supplement to private savings, is the only leg left for hundreds of millions of Americans. Studies show that people in the bottom two income quartiles depend on Social Security for 84 percent of their retirement income, and even the second richest quartile depends on Social Security for 55 percent of its retirement income. Only the richest 25% of Americans don't rely on Social Security.

~snip~

Despite Social Security's new role as a de facto national retirement plan, many budget deficit hawks are calling for cuts to it to decrease America's indebtedness. But that would only make things worse for retiring Americans. The real problem with Social Security is that it is not robust enough to play this role as retirement security of last resort, though not for the reasons most critics say. Contrary to gloomy predictions about its future collapse, the program is on solid footing, with the Congressional Budget Office projecting that Social Security can pay all scheduled benefits out of its own tax revenue stream for the next 40 years.

~snip~

Instead of cutting back Social Security, what we need to do is expand it by doubling the individual payout. That would cost about $650 billion annually for the 51 million Americans who receive benefits. This expanded version -- call it Social Security Plus -- could be paid for with revenues identified in a new study (pdf) I wrote for the New America Foundation. Here’s how.

[xchrom]

1. Recommend - I can feel the blood pressure

Rising in some just for this idea being out there.

[Octafish]

2. Get this to the Catfood Commission.

Gosh, with increased money for those in their retirement years, the marketers on the tee vee might start to have commercials geared to us seniors.

[msongs]

3. just cut the US military industrial welfare fraud budget by at least 50% nt

[kickysnana]

4. How about the 5 year SSDI backlog? How many people died waiting? n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. "Tax the friggin rich! I'm really starting to hate those SOB!"

:rofl: Join the club.