Russert Lied on Life Expectency on Social Security 1930's

Right from Social Security Website it is exposed as a BIG LIE that workers got to 65 and dropped dead in 3 months!

If we look at life expectancy statistics from the 1930s we might come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood.

As Table 1 shows, the majority of Americans who made it to adulthood could expect to live to 65, and those who did live to 65 could look forward to collecting benefits for many years into the future. So we can observe that for men, for example, almost 54% of the them could expect to live to age 65 if they survived to age 21, and men who attained age 65 could expect to collect Social Security benefits for almost 13 years (and the numbers are even higher for women).

Also, it should be noted that there were already 7.8 million Americans age 65 or older in 1935 (cf. Table 2), so there was a large and growing population of people who could receive Social Security. Indeed, the actuarial estimates used by the Committee on Economic Security (CES) in designing the Social Security program projected that there would be 8.3 million Americans age 65 or older by 1940 (when monthly benefits started). So Social Security was not designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits.

As Table 1 indicates, the average life expectancy at age 65 (i.e., the number of years a person could be expected to receive unreduced Social Security retirement benefits) has increased a modest 5 years (on average) since 1940. So, for example, men attaining 65 in 1990 can expect to live for 15.3 years compared to 12.7 years for men attaining 65 back in 1940.

(Increases in life expectancy are a factor in the long-range financing of Social Security; but other factors, such as the sheer size of the "baby boom" generation, and the relative proportion of workers to beneficiaries, are larger determinants of Social Security's future financial condition.)

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

So far I've emailed this to MTP and Media Matters. As I said too bad KO works for the network - would he have the guts to expose Russert obviously playing from the GOP playbook of lies?

Fat Jaws drives me crazy!
He lies ALL the time and he is a C - student at best.

Where do they find these clowns?

It is an insult to all the brilliant minds in journalism.

I had to read it twice to make sure you weren't calling him something worse!

thinking when he instituted old age pensions in Germany.

Those who pay FICA tax on 100% of their payroll wages are in the "bottom 90%" of wage earners, and THOSE are the people who've been slammed by diminished earnings after inflation. In other words, the aggregate payroll base hasn't been increasing its income to keep pace with inflation - i.e. in "constant dollars."



When we consider the ratio of workers to beneficiaries, the massive toll on the number of people working (ten million fewer than 2000 including average growth) taken by the Cheney/Bush adminstration shows its impact.



Remember, the first "baby-boomer" (born in 1946) has not yet reached 66!! Indeed, they haven't reached 62 (early retirement), either.

:crazy:

If I were to make a "quick fix" to Social Security, I'd impose a 2% sales tax on the sale or trade of corporate stocks (equities) and allocate 100% of the proceeds of such a tax to OASDI/HI.

So, the GOP wants to associate corporate stock with Social Security?? They think Social Security would be more 'secure' if based on the stock market? OK. That's how I'd do it. NOT 'investing' in corporate stock. Nope. Collecting a sales tax on the sale or trade of that PROPERTY - a sale of property currently untaxed.

Insofar as how the Trust Fund should be 'invested' (since I don't believe in burying it in mayonaisse jars in the White House back yard), in addition to T-Bills it could hold state and municipal bonds and, if necessary, home mortgage notes/bundles for VA-insured residences.

They are happy to keep him in office, no matter how stupid he is because they can keep getting away with this crap.

social security funds to balance the budget and pay for his programs. After he cut the taxes so much he didn't have any money to pay for running the government. So he stole from social security and it was continued by GHWB and GWB. President Clinton was the only one who didn't use social security funds.