AARP article on Social Security: Ryan (deficit committee) wants reduced benefits, private accounts

[Hannah Bell]

As the bipartisan fiscal commission appointed by President Obama considers ways to address the federal budget deficit, the 75-year-old system­ finds itself caught between two sharply conflicting points of view.

Strengthen the system

Increase revenue to bolster its long-term financial stability. As pensions and personal savings decline, people over 50 are counting more on Social Security than they expected when they were younger, according to a new AARP Bulletin survey.

Shrink the system

Reduce benefits. Many lawmakers, citing a need to control the ever-widening federal deficit, have floated proposals for lower-than-expected benefits for millions of workers retiring 20, 15, even 10 years from now.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, is a member of the deficit commission... Ryan has drafted legislation that he calls a “Roadmap for America’s Future.” It would address the deficit largely by reducing future payments for Social Security (along with Medicare and Medicaid). Workers who are 55 or younger in 2011 would see their future benefits reduced. To compensate, they could divert part of their payroll taxes to a series of government-managed funds—but with no guarantee that their savings would replace their lost benefits... We have no choice, Ryan insists.

http://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-07-2010/social_securitywhere_do_we_go_from_here.html



Meanwhile, something I just learned of....

MONEY: Social Security Integration .., biz’s claims can confuse
http://www.aarpmagazine.org/money/Articles/
a2003-01-21-7costly.html

http://tinyurl.com/ywtgfr

***Begin Quote***

Learn the secret lingo

The first phrase you need to commit to memory is “Social Security integration.” Yeah, it’s a doozy. Say it out loud several times so you don’t forget. The phrase signifies that your company uses a tricky formula to calculate your pension that in effect mingles projected Social Security earnings with your company benefit to make your future look rosier than it really is. “It can be completely devastating,” says Hotz. For example, if your pre-retirement company statement tells you you’re going to get, say, $1,000 a month as a pension, and Social Security tells you you’re going to get $1,000 a month, you may logically conclude that you’ll get $2,000 a month to live on. Instead, with Social Security integration, you could be looking at $1,500, since pension pay is reduced by up to 50 percent of the amount of Social Security you receive. About half of all companies use Social Security integration.

***End Quote***


Can't find the original article, but how many people are aware of this, or understand it?

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[fasttense]

2. The full retirement age under Social Security is 70 years old.

If you retire before that, you lose 20 to 50% of your well earned benefits. So, how much more are they going to steal from you before you get up off your sofas and fight back?

Remember, Tricky Dick had the Hippies protesting against him. FDR had the socialist and communist protesting against him. Do you see a pattern?

[Hannah Bell]

4. the full retirement age currently varies from 65 to 67 depending on your birthdate.

[fasttense]

6. Not according to my Social Security monthly statement.

You can retire early anywhere between 62 through 69 if you are willing to take a 20 to 50% reduction in your well earned benefits (depending on how early you opt for). But to get your full benefits that you paid double for, you must be 70 years old. Yes, for some people it is different. It is prorated for each age group. Raygun and Greenspan planned it that way so that all the old people wouldn't organize and protest (and it worked).

But for the young people today, full retirement under Social Security is 70 year old. Boehner doesn't know what he is talking about when he says Social Security retirement should be raised to 70 years old. It is already 70 years old. Maybe what he wants is for Early Retirement to be moved to 70 years old.

I'll soon be 54 and my full retirement age is 70 years old, that's what it says on my monthly statement.

You must be older.

[WinkyDink]

7. Are you saying this "revision" to age 70 has already happened?? And no, "early" is not what is being

discussed.

[fasttense]

9. Yes.

It happened in 1983. That was the little trick Raygun and Greenspan played on us Baby Boomers.

That and paying double Social Security payroll taxes. The Baby Boomers were the 1st generation to pay for both their parents and their own retirement. The money for us Baby Boomers is in the Social Security Trust Fund. That $2.5 Trillion that Billionaire Pete Peterson is so hot to get his hands on.

What I think they also want to do is change the early retirement age to 70 years old and prorate it to 80 year old. You are right, they are not calling it early retirement. But are they stupid enough not to know that full retirement under Social Security is 70 year old already? Maybe they don't know. A lot of people here on DU don't know.

Here's to throwing boxes of freight at Wal-Mart until you're 79, provided your body last that long.

[Hannah Bell]

15. i think you must be reading your statement wrong. what happened in 1983 was

the phased-in increase from 65 to 67.

if you were born in 1960 or later, full retirement = 1967. And currently, that's the cutoff.

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/retire2/agereduction.htm

there's an option to take benefits starting as late as 70, but that's above full retirement age.

•remember that, if you delay your benefits until AFTER full retirement age, you may be eligible for delayed retirement credits that would increase your monthly benefit.

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/retire2/delayret.htm

Social Security benefits are increased by a certain percentage (depending on date of birth) if you delay your retirement beyond full retirement age.

The benefit increase no longer applies when you reach age 70, even if you continue to delay taking benefits.

Here's An Important Point: If you decide to delay your retirement, be sure to

sign up for just Medicare at age 65.

In some circumstances, your Medicare coverage may be delayed and cost more.

[WinkyDink]

8. Currently, a person retiring with SS at 62 will "break even" age 78. THIS is from a legit SS source.

And then one can "buy back" his prior SS payments (and Medicare deductions) to get the full SS starting age 78, if he thinks he'll live to, say, 90.

I'm going with 62, probably.

[fasttense]

11. Well, if you retire 8 year early of course at eight years into your

real retirement age you will break even. But do you really believe that a 78 year old person has over $100,000 balloon payment to "buy back" their retirement?

But all you are doing is re-wording what I said before. Full retirement age is already 70 years old.

[corpseratemedia]

3. ok thats it, lets do it this Fall

we need millions to come, how do we organize a protest against this commission and it's desire to gut ss?


added: what else can we do..it seems so draconian

[fasttense]

5. Well, in Iran they used twitter to organize.

You know the easiest thing to do would be to join Cindy Shehan's protest. She's been out in front of the White House for months. She's got tons of protests planned. Just go out there and co-op her protest. Bring your "Save Social Security" signs. I'm sure she would like the company.

Here is a link: http://peaceoftheaction.org/

[Hannah Bell]

10. they also used cia payments. we don't have that option here. i think there are several alleys:

There are some national groups doing some work around these issues, apparently without much budget, since most of the monied ruling class that usually funds such "grassroots" things is fully on board with the catfood commission.

someone turned out some people at the town halls organized by pete peterson, but the three groups i read mentioned, campaign for america's future, move on, & social security works, don't appear to be organizing at the grassroots level -- whatever they're doing is through maybe the democratic party or its satellites & the usual "sign our petition/give us your email + name & address/give us some money":

http://civic.moveon.org/socialsecurity//

http://socialsecurity-works.org/2010/deficit-commission-transparency-letter/

here's a link to get updates from social security works "for the fight ahead":

http://socialsecurityworksforamerica.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8b3c02245e99759ec559e1dee&id=43ab54f108


there seems to be no way to hook into any such effort beyond email petitions & $$$. and if you look at the # and magnitude of the issues caf's working on compared to the importance of ss, it's discouraging -- scattershot, they can't be devoting much staff/effort to any of them.


so that leaves the grassroots mostly on their own, so far as i can see.

So how could the "lowly" people organize such an effort?

Let's hear some more ideas.

[fasttense]

13. So what's wrong with my idea of joining Cindy Sheehan?

By the way, if you look at history, it will take constant protests. Stopping Vietnam took years. The socialist were protesting 10 years before FDR came along. Martin Luther King protested and preached constantly. So, this can't be a one time shot.

It will be an ongoing struggle. But it can be won.

[Hannah Bell]

14. cindy sheehan is in dc. most of the country isn't.

for social security, the catfood commission is going to make recs around xmas when everyone's occupied with the holidays, & congress is going to vote them up or down in a quick lame-duck session.

we don't have years.

[unhappycamper]

12. This sounds like Newt's 'Contract on America'. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

16. exactly. apparently erskine bowles (deficit commission) was cutting a deal with gingrich

when the lewinsky scandal hit.

or so says this source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/the-stealth-attack-on-ame_b_617164.html

Washington bipartisan elites have been working to weaken Social Security since the mid-Clinton Administration. Clinton, prodded by his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, was on the verge of cutting a deal with Newt Gingrich to partially privatize America's most successful retirement program.

The intermediary was Clinton's White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles. The same Bowles is now the co-chair of Obama's fiscal commission -- which also has designs on Social Security. Corporate Democrats keep turning up, like bad pennies.

As I reported in my 2007 book, The Squandering of America, liberals can thank Monica Lewinsky for saving Social Security from that earlier bipartisan deal. Why? Because when the frisky Clinton was being impeached, and Congressional liberals were holding their noses and reluctantly saving him from ouster, they were in no mood to have him trash Social Security. New details have been reported in the recent book, The Pact, by Steven Gillon, about Clinton's dealings with Gingrich.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. The REAL plan is to force people's retirement savings

to be invested in Treasury ( gov't debt) bonds, going forward.
That is what "To compensate, they could divert part of their payroll taxes to a series of government-managed funds".
This plan has been floating around for awhile, I do not have links, but I am sure Google does.

Government managed funds...think about that.
What they mean is a direct funnel to the big banks.

[blindpig]

18. That the findings of this commision won't be revealed until...

after the mid-terms speaks volumes. There is gonna be serious pain involved, not to mention robbery.

[JCMach1]

19. Does Obama want to get re-elected? this is a trainwreck waiting to happen