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The status of the Social Security and Medicare trusts is well known. I’m not going to rehash it here. Unfortunately, the amount of misinformation and false information about SS on social media is incredible and scary.
No serious effort at necessary reform has occurred since 1983 and certainly not now which is sad given fixing SS is not that hard or necessarily that painful.
One key question is how, if at all, should changes be allocated between current workers and current retirees.
How concerned are you?
What are your friends saying about the issue?
I’m not concerned; I’m terrified. Telling seniors to work longer is not the answer unless you also address the age discrimination that throws so many into retirement before they are ready.
If there’s a crash of the system, or a “Great Tightening,” it will come late enough in my life that I don’t have to care.* I’m not proud of having that attitude, but there it is.
If I were younger I probably would be planning for a future in which the system pays less. That would also require making informed guesses on how much less is likely.
*This is based on the assumptions that the “trust fund” runs out when current estimates indicate, and that lawmakers don’t do a thing before then to avoid it.
Why the large number of net negatives to my limited COLA idea?
People earning $176,100 plus and earning the maximum for many years before retirement are not able to save enough to offset inflation?
What am I missing? 😱
Any proposed reduction in SS benefits triggers a lot of negativity.
Sounds like a good idea except that it would add complexity and inc