PFRDA - Solution to Social Security?

Solution to Social Security?

There are two popular answers to saving the Social Security System- Old Age, Survivors, Disability Insurance. 1. Raise Payroll taxes, freeze benefits and raise the retirement age to 70 2. Privatize Social Security. Replace the government system with individual accounts. An employee's payroll taxes are sent to a private account where he/she can save or invest his/her money as he/she wants. Widows and Widowers can have access to the money after the spouse dies to account for the current Survivor's Insurance. Disabled are put on the current SSI- Supplemental Security Income. which do you think works?

Public Comments

Privatize it. You can't "fix" a government mandated Ponzi scheme.
A modification of #1, eliminate the maximum level of contributors contributions, and establish a means test to eliminate those the do not need the financial benefits the majority of Americans need.
Well, let's look at the facts. When this giant Ponze Scheme was created it was 10 workers paying for the retirement of 1. Now it is 3 to 1. Within this decade, it will get to 2 to 1. IT IS FAILING. Raising the retirement age and increasing payroll taxes would lengthen it a little, but that has been done several times over the decades. Insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein. It is time to try something new. Never in history has either the S&P or the DOW not out-performed the the government program over a 20 year stretch....rarely over a 10 year stretch. Privatizing WOULD WORK better than the current system, even if the age and contributions were raised. bruce...nobody has tried privatizing their retirement plans as suggested by Bush...and recessions would not hurt anyone in the long run. Even this recession would have seen people watch their investments fall and bounce back already. The worst case scenario is a retiree having to wait a few extra years. As for importing more workers...this is ignorance at its finest. We have too many workers for the number of jobs now. Importing more would collapse the economy even further. Gunny...nice try, but it was Lyndon Johnson who first put the social security funds into the general fund making them available for raiding over the years.
Leave it alone and wait for the baby boomers to pass, we don`t need a bigger worker pool with the retirement age raised on the youth. SS is a boring safety net not an investment, is is there when your private investments fail.
PUT---an end to REAGAN'S practice of raiding the fund & replacing funds with IOU's the SSI fund generates Surplus when not tapped by Congress....challenge ANY con to show otherwise...
Countries that have tried to privatize their pensions have lost all their money in the first recession. Then the taxpayers have to make up the difference or see their grandma starve to death. Those who want to privatize really just want to destroy the system and kill the elderly poor. The problem is that it is not like a pension where your money is invested in bonds, but a tax and an entitlement that hands its surplus over to the US treasury for IOUs. When it looks like they will have to make good on the IOUs they say it is bankrupt and need more money. First, eliminate the 107k cap. That will keep it solvent for another 75 years. Second, we once had 5 workers per retiree. Now we have 3. Soon it will be 2. We need to immigrate millions of young workers to keep the revenue flowing as the population ages. Third, the life expectancy has doubled over the past 100 years, so we need to raise that retirement age for those who are born today, not raise it retrospectively.
Social security has worked quite well over the years. It has never been in debt. The problem is that when it was installed, the life expectancy was about 63. Now it is over 80. In both cases, we still pay out until 65. So -- some tinkering is definitely needed in that sense. Besides, I don't think people would leave that nest egg alone very often. It's a little too tempting. Kind of like the J.G. Wentworth ad -- "It's my money, and I need it now." That would only add to the poverty problem of the elderly, and we'd have to give them help anyway. I know that argument of self-determination, and I generally like it. But if the idea is to have a safety net for the elderly, let's try to make it safe and not subject to the whims of the market. (A lot of money has been lost in the market since 2007, so I'd be nervous if everything I owned was in there during that time and I was about to retire.)
You've listed several proposed solutions. Raising payroll taxes alone won't solve the problem, especially during a time of economic distress and the enormous burden on the system by the vast number of people presently retiring. Raising the retirement age to 70 wouldn't be fair to people who are working in a physically demanding job. Freezing benefits to people on a fixed income while Congress votes in their own raises every year also seem a little questionable to say the least. I suspect that there's a lot of waste and fraud in the system which might be an excellent start in trying to make the system solvent. Perhaps privatizing or making it voluntary needs some more debates and analysis.
return to the law of the jungle, dog eat dog, let the weak die 1- build walls to surround all cities thus creating employment 2- throw all those that are weak, elderly, handicapped, sick, unemployed, out of the city 3- employ extra security to keep them out, with shoot on site orders, possibly a bonus incentive think of the savings
First,you have to get congress to quit raiding the trust funds and stuffing I.O.U.'s in them. Then you have to start denying benefits to those that do not pay into the system. G.W. wanted to allow workers to invest part of their S.S. taxes into investment funds to help finance their retirement,but the democrats opposed that idea. As 1 commentator said:"A person could invest their tax break into government bonds and get the same results as SSA gets". The difference here is that you could leave that money to your spouse or heirs when you die and not to the government (like social security does). Private retirement accounts already exist,the trouble is that democratic members of congress held not to well publicized hearings about rolling all retirement accounts not being used into the SS Trust Fund. The government would then determine your social security benefits and your benefits from your individual retirement account. When you die,both accounts go to the government - nothing for you spouse,heirs or donations to organizations you support. According to the news article,everyone who testified before the congressional panel supported the plan. This took place about the time Obama got elected.
First of all the S.S. was suppose to be invested for the elderly and when they retired , money would be there for them to retire on! However , no one was suppose to be able to touch that money! but if you look it up you will find the Liberals / Democrats couldn't keep their hands off that money! (They said it was an investment) but the money was never replaced ever! Now that the ratio is going the opposite way , then it was before, there is no money for the Seniors. Most Seniors that are now looking forward to retirement will not be able to retire! EVER! They need to privatize it now for the future retirees! And ABSOLUTELY no one should be able to touch that money except the person that is investing it, and for his retirement / disability only! But ! The greedy government will try to find a way to get their hands on that money! And If the HC bill stays as it is, then they will be able to access your bank account and take money out of that account with out your permission any time they want!
If you have individual SS accounts, there would be no money available to pay benefits to the 41 million adults and 8 million children who get Social Security now. SS is not for investment. It is to pay you or your family disability and death benefits at any age or retirement benefits at 66 or 67. None of the solutions proposed are the right ones. You cannot reduce current social security benefits to those who cannot work and have no other income. For future retirees who have 401Ks or other retirement investment vehicles they dont need social security for that purpose but those contributions pay for current recipients. 1. Eliminate social security benefits for all those who did not contribute to the fund. 2. Increase the ceiling for contributions to the fund for those earning over $106,800 annually. 3. Have means-testing for Medicare, charge higher premiums for retired seniors who are millionaires. • Each divorced spouse of over 10 years marriage receive spousal benefits after age 60 or 50 if disabled. • Each child of each divorced spouse from each marriage of over 10 years gets benefits to age 18. • Each child of a disabled parent on SSD or SSI also receives disability benefits • Children born with a permanent mental or physical disability get benefits from SSD or SSI • Each child of each deceased parent receives survivor benefits to age 18 or 19 • Legal low income senior emigrants who have not worked in the U.S. get SSI • Low income Families can get SSI • Pregnant girls and women of low income get SSI • Seniors whose Social Security is 200% below federal poverty guideline receive SSI • Adults under age 65 get for SSI if disabled short-term • Adults under age 65 get SSDI if disabled long-term
""""Disabled are put on the current SSI- Supplemental Security Income"""" SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) is only paid to those who paid into Social Security FICA payroll taxes when they were working, just like retirees did. Benefits are based on how much they paid in. So you are suggesting we default on peoples insurance claim, they paid into for 20, 30, 40 years? How about when you wreck your car and the insurance will only pay about 30% of the claim you have coming. You would be alright with that. Or is it just OK with you to screw other people.