I would like someone to show me what cuts have been proposed for current SS recipients. Not a

formula change for the COLA, but an actual cut for people currently receiving social security benefits proposed by anyone.

+1

has a totally different plan.

2. Medicare costs, which are TAKEN from SS checks, will not rise.

Your turn.

health care costs but that's a different story

Do you even know this, that SS checks have automatic deductions per month for Medicare, and that these deductions have risen annually?

You have $5 one day. You use that to buy milk, eggs and bread.

A year later the total of those items now comes to $10, but you still only have $5 to spend, forcing you to cut one of those three items from your list.

You now have 2 items where you once had 3.

Is 2 less than 3?

that's a cut in my book.

and btw, we have already had 19% cut in the value of social security benefits phased in over time thanks to reagan.

another 6% cut via cola = future beneficiaries receiving fully 25% less than the "greatest generation" did, while paying significantly more.

combine that with the changes in the methods of calculating inflation ("hedonic" adjustments & such) & i see seniors under bridges.

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Because it's just a unneeded bonus that gets larger every year.

Nice.

The benefit loses purchasing power, from the first instance of its application.

Nor should current recipients be the sole concern; younger persons looking at raised ages for eligibility and the like are certainly facing cuts in expected benefits.

is not reduced.

You have heard of the concept, right?

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The worth of money resides in what it can be exchanged for; it is not the size of the pile of money, but the size of the pile of goods it can be traded for, that establishes its value. If a pile of money the same size as last year's pile can only get a smaller pile of goods, the amount of value the person given that pile of money receives is smaller than before, or in other words, what that person receives has been cut.

Sometimes things are just as they seem.

"Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath."

cut your expenses. it's a cut by other means

You don't think you'd miss the money because technically "it was not a cut," even though your daily dollar was supposed to be increased so as to keep pace with the soda prices?

You're a better man than I, Gunga Din.

formulas. Because neither takes into account energy or food - which are really the most important aspects of purchasing power.

Frankly, I also have a problem that it only takes into account a single quarter of the entire annual report. I also have a problem with the fact that it deals only with past inflation, not projected inflation. This means that by the time recipients get an increase, it's already too late because they have already been paying more.

The more I think about it, the more problems I have with the entire COLA process! The 2 years are a prime example. According to the current formula because of recessionary deflation during the quarter in question, it did not qualify for an increase. However, immediately after the comparison quarter there was high inflation, which greatly reduces SS recipients' purchasing power for an entire year until the next comparison quarter.

Thank the Universe Obama pushed through an extra $250 stimulus check!

The one proposed does so to an even greater extent.

general population?

In a way, I can understand excluding energy prices simply because they can be so volatile. In theory, energy prices will have an effect on secondary prices. Food prices are another matter.

Frankly, we need the most accurate inflation indicators available to calculate COLA increases. Experts say that the Chained CPI is more accurate than the CPI-U index. I hope this is based on historical data, but I would really have to see the data myself to give an informed judgement.

I still have a problem that the COLA is basically regressive. If we had a reliable forecast model this could be easily corrected with a one-time "hit", which would then even out over the future and could be easily adjusted if the future historical did not match projections.

But that's just me.

edit to add: I think another problem we have to consider is regional cost-of-living. We are trying to find a "one size fits all" calculation when in fact it varies greatly by region. But, of course, that makes everything more complicated and more difficult to manage.

Between one percent and one and a half percent per year would have been added to the adjustments of Social Security payments, and for that matter, to official calculations of inflation. The decision to revise the procedures for calculation in a way that reduced the size of the stated increase owed nothing to any concern for accurately stating the increase in the cost of procuring goods and services....

Seriously, no raises IS a cut when the norm used to be a COLA raise yearly or close to yearly.

"Make no mistake: This is a bipartisan effort. It started back in December, when President Obama capitulated to the GOP on a budget deal by cutting the payroll tax, which funds Social Security. Advocates for the program pointed out then the shortcomings of this approach: It was targeted inefficiently and unfairly, skewing to the upper middle class and hurting lower-income families in comparison with the Making Work Pay tax credit it replaced.

Even more troubling, it blew a hole in the financing mechanism for Social Security by reducing payroll tax revenue by roughly $110 billion for the year. It was plain then, as it is now, that once you've cut a tax, it's ever harder to restore it.

..."We were assured that the payroll tax cut negotiated in December would be a one-time, temporary step. No danger that Social Security could be permanently impaired, or so the assurances came. It's now six months later. More economic stimulus is obviously needed, and the payroll tax is on the table again. (Surprise!)

This time the talk is of extending the one-time-only cut for workers, whose FICA deductions dropped to 4.2% from 6.2% of covered pay, and throwing in a similar break for employers, who also pay 6.2% of covered payroll. The talk comes against the backdrop of a signal from the big retirement lobby group AARP that it would accept certain changes in Social Security, including benefit cuts. (AARP backed off, but only a bit, when its policy shift was divulged publicly Friday.)"

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/19/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20110619

Those tax cuts are depriving SS of funds, and if it continues....all will be affected.

You are in serious denial.

is full of triggers and traps for what they say will make the program solvent for 75 years. Its hard to be specific, because they aren't specific.

states that any savings would be used for future SS solvency, NOT deficit reduction.

That probably means they'll keep borrowing money from SS for the general fund and never pay back the bonds owned by SS.

Why would they propose a change in the COLA "to reduce the deficit" if it was not ultimately a way to CUT the benefit? You're smarter than that, I know it. COLA means "Cost of Living Adjustment." There is a specific formula to determine this cost. So, if you just rejigger the formula so the recipients don't get as much, that's still a cut, anyway you look at it. Wake up, man!

First of all, no one is suggesting that we change the COLA calculation "to reduce the deficit" - only to increase the solvency of SS for the future. The argument is that the current use of the CPI-U basis is not as accurate as an indicator of inflation as the Chained-CPI calculation; that the CPI-U calculation overstates inflation.

Personally, I think they both suck. But the OP is correct, it cannot be considered a "cut" because current benefits are not being cut, only the way we calculate future INCREASES.

That is EXACTLY what "they" are saying, that social security benefits must be cut to reduce the deficit. Reducing or eliminating the COLA is a cut to future purchasing power every time prices go up. Have you not noticed that food and fuel cost at least a third more than they did just a few years ago?

And "they" are certainly not saying that defense spending or subsidies to Big Agra or Big Pharma should be cut, now are they?

I confess that sometimes posts like yours cause me to feel astonishment.

Tax cuts to trim deficits is like fucking to promote virginity! And haven't we seen quite enough tax cuts for rich people?

Pardon my potty mouth but I'm starting to get a little upset about all this.

The Administration has stated that COLA changes would be ~ .25% less with a new CPI formula. For comparative purposes, I figured this on a presumed 2% CPI under the current formula, and a 1.75% CPI under a revised formula.

Monthly base Soc Sec benefit @ $1,025, with annual COLA's over 10 years.

COLA w/
CPI @ 2%

$1,045.50
$1,066.41
$1,087.74
$1,109.49
$1,131.68
$1,154.32
$1,177.40
$1,200.95
$1,224.97
$1,249.47

10 Years
$137,375.20

COLA w/
Chained-CPI @ 1.75%

$1,042.94
$1,061.19
$1,079.76
$1,098.66
$1,117.88
$1,137.44
$1,157.35
$1,177.60
$1,198.21
$1,219.18

10 Years
$135,482.58

Annual Difference
$30.75
$62.65
$95.74
$130.05
$165.61
$202.46
$240.63
$280.16
$321.10
$363.46

10 Yr Difference
$1,892.62

Those are simply projections based on assumptions that simply aren't valid. It's entirely possible that the Chained-CPI might actually be higher in some cases than the CPI-U.

Honestly, We. Just. Don't. Know.

No one can predict the future.

If it does not prove out on that line, people will have done a poor job by their own lights....

The governing elite, whether in office or in the board-room, wants to welsh on its markers. It is getting to the point where the Treasury bonds held by the Social Security Trust Fund will need to be redeemed in cash. To do so, there will need to be either some reduction in spending on other items, or some increase in taxes. Neither politicians nor those who purchase politicians in wholesale lots want to do either thing. What they do want to do is continue to use the regressive pay-roll tax as a principal source of general revenue, as they have in effect been doing with the amounts collected by this levy in excess of immediate pay-outs for many decades. The F.I.C.A. tax already amounts to over a third of taxes collected against income by the Federal government. Keep the F.I.C.A. rates going up, as rates on income and capital gains are cut further for the wealthy, and as benefits for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are reduced, and this proportion will only increase. The aim is to produce a Federal tax system sufficiently regressive as to shock even a medieval cleric.

There is no other reason to include Social Security in deficit reduction discussions, but to renege on the Trust Fund bonds. This is the endgame of a sinister strategy laid down three decades ago.

Social Security is my sole income, so I'm watching this debate / deliberation pretty closely. And I'm sure I'm not the only one in the same boat.

:hi:

Trust me, you most certainly are not alone in that boat. :)

Then we will see the true impact of inflation.

This current generation of recipients are receiving a lot more for the amount they put in than future recipients will, but still they want more.

Future demographics won't allow it though. There are simply not enough workers as we reach the maturation of our pay as you go system.

You have no idea what the sum total of goods and services will be in the country's economy in twenty or thirty years; you have no idea what the tax structure will be; it is even a bit chancy to try and sound quite certain what the social and political structures will be.

"The future is hard to predict, on account of it ain't happened yet."

:thumbsup:

The current aging population is being replaced by a smaller working age generation.

Fewer workers will support more retirees. That's undeniable.

Those retirees will live longer than the last generation whom they supported (absent some great plague I suppose - so let's just call that "undeniable unless you suggest an unprecedented cataclysm").

The retirement age of 65 was developed when the average life expectancy of a male was 48. Pretending that longevity does not impact the funding of a retirement program is as idiotic as pretending demographics don't.

There are only two choices here.

1) Fewer earners will have to pay significantly more to support more retirees for longer

2) More retirees will have to either accept less, or for less time, so that they don't have to.

Personally given the reduction in the number of back-breaking hard labor jobs (yes they still exist - stories of bricklayers and piprefitters do not refute the falling number of people who do hard labor, merely provide examples of the currently dmaller number), increasing lifespans (current small downward blip not yet a trend), more attention and resources to healthcare etc I'd go for the "less time" option.

It is not the number of workers that matters, it is the amount of value their work generates, and how it is distributed, that is important.

Average life span is a deceptive measure. By far the greatest proportion of increased average life span owes to reduction in childhood death; people who survived into adulthood seventy years ago could expect to live lives not much shorter than people expect today. Expected life span also varies greatly with wealth and social status, so that people who are prosperous and enjoy high status occupations and situations live markedly longer on average than people who do not, and that latter, in fact, has seen only negligible increases in life expectancy over recent decades. Policy based on the life span to be expected by those on the upper rungs of the social ladder will certainly short the very people who most need assistance.

Your view that the 'current small downward blip' is not a trend is touching. The increased stress inflicted by increasing income inequality and uncertainty of situation on a large portion of our people is lethal, and may well if it continues overcome the effects of advances in medical science, particularly as these will be out of reach of increasing numbers of people owing to their costs.

and wanting to live just as lavishly.

After all, look at what they're raking in now:

http://schakowsky.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2951:seniors-task-force-members-send-letter-to-president-urging-him-to-protect-medicare-medicaid-social-security&catid=22:2011-press-releases

America’s seniors are facing increasing financial hardships, exacerbated by the loss of defined benefit pensions, the erosion of retirement savings, and two years without any cost-of-living increase in Social Security benefits. The average senior citizen in America lives on a fixed income of slightly more than $19,000 a year. Two-thirds of retirees rely on Social Security for more than half of their income, one-third for 90 percent or more – yet Social Security retiree benefits average $14,000 a year, $2,000 less for women.

Although over 90 percent of seniors saved for retirement, less than half have been able to save more than $50,000. With the cost of daily basic necessities such as groceries, gas, and medical care on the rise, many of America’s senior citizens are simply unable to afford further financial strains.



And just compare that to the responsible financiers, who of course create all those jobs and pay all those taxes and have nothing whatsoever to do with how we got in this mess:




http://www.thenation.com/blog/hedge-fund-managers-beat-banks
--Clarissa Leon

US unemployment may be hovering just under 10 percent, but some lucky hedge fund managers won't feel a thing. On Countdown with Chris Olbermann, Chris Hayes, Washington editor for The Nation, discusses the news that the top twenty-five hedge fund managers collectively made $25 billion last year. The top earner, David Tepper, pocketed $4 billion by correctly bidding on banks that the government bailed out with taxpayer money. Moreover, because this income is considered capital gains, these hedge fund managers, like Tepper, will pay fewer taxes than a group of Americans who collectively made $25 billion.
As Hayes explains, the news is an indicator of an environment of extreme inequality and underscores how far we remain from a meritocratic order where people are rewarded for their good ideas. The finance sector should be taking money from savings and channeling it into investments--another failure of Wall Street. In order to really rein in the financial sector we must do three things, says Hayes: "Financial regulation that's serious, that breaks up banks and reduces the size of the sector. We need a financial transaction tax, which will tax some of this money sloshing around in these bets and will reduce the size of the sector. And we also need general tax reform, so that we tax people that make that much money a lot at a much higher rate."