In response to the recent burst of inflation, the government increased Social Security benefits significantly in the past two years. But compared to average pre-retirement income, net benefits have been falling for decades. And the trend will continue. One big reason: Rapidly rising Medicare premiums that usually are deducted directly from Social Security checks. Think about Social Security benefits in [...]
In the U.S., some Republican lawmakers are proposing to raise the age of eligibility for full Social Security benefits, provoking withering criticism from President Biden and many Democrats. But the debate over when government should begin paying retirement benefits isn’t just a controversy here. It is happening all over the world. French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed gradually raising the [...]
Suddenly, Social Security reform is back in the news. For all the wrong reasons, perhaps. But at least politicians are talking about it. And that’s a good thing. After all, in only about a dozen years, the Social Security Old Age trust fund will be insolvent and able to pay only about three-quarters of its promised benefits. Despite that looming [...]
An amazing thing happened in this year’s presidential election. A major party candidate proposed raising Social Security payroll taxes. And won. More than that, it was never even an issue. What ever happened to Social Security being the third rail of American politics? The candidate, of course, was Joe Biden. He proposed a quite detailed plan for reforming Social Security [...]
President Trump has proposed deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants and backed curbs on legal immigration into the US. The president’s aggressive views on immigration have generated intense debate over the past year, but much of that discussion has ignored a key issue: What immigration restrictions would mean for the long-term health of Social Security. A new study by my Urban Institute [...]
A technical rule change engineered by House Republicans on the first day of the new Congress may signal the beginning of a major battle over the future of the Social Security Disability program—and, more broadly, other federal programs for people with disabilities. The immediate issue is the fate of the SSDI trust fund, which is expected to become exhausted in [...]
How will Washington’s ongoing budget crisis affect seniors? Not much, at first. But it could become very costly in just a few weeks. One big unresolved question: Will Social Security benefits be paid if the government breaches the debt limit? Many seniors programs will continue to operate for at least a while. For now, Social Security checks are going out [...]
Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's vice-presidential pick, would fundamentally remake federal health and long-term care services for the frail elderly and adults with disabilities. He'd completely restructure Medicare, slash funding for Medicaid, and likely abolish most of the other safety net programs that this vulnerable population has come rely on over the last half-century. It is fair to say that no major party candidate for [...]
There may be no more controversial issue for both Baby Boomers and their parents than Social Security. After AARP officials said last week the organization would be open to discussing changes in the system, I wrote the following for my TaxVox blog: Social Security has two obvious problems. While the system is not “broke,” as some insist, it will have only enough [...]