Politicians love to say they “won’t touch” Social Security, as if leaving the program alone will protect older adults. In reality, a new study by two of my Urban Institute colleagues finds that failing to fix the program’s looming financial shortfall would throw 3.8 million seniors into poverty by 2045. Median promised benefits would decline by $5,900 (in 2022 dollars). [...]
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 [...]
Washington voters will decide the fate of the state’s path-breaking public long-term care insurance program in a referendum this Fall. If adopted, Initiative 2124 would make participation in the Washington Cares program voluntary, effectively killing it. The effort, largely bankrolled by hedge fund manager Brian Heywood and backed by prominent state Republicans, is the latest attempt by conservatives to dismantle [...]
Critics of Medicaid’s long-term services and supports (LTSS) program often complain that it is so poorly designed that lavishes benefits on wealthy retirees and wastes billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Some people do abuse the system. And they should be stopped. But the real problem with Medicaid LTSS is that in many states its benefits are so paltry that [...]
As 2020 dawns, the US is about to reach a critical, historic tipping point in its need to care for frail older adults. And we are tragically unprepared. In just five years, the first of the 77-million strong Baby Boom generation will reach age 80—the time when people’s frailty increases dramatically and they begin to need high levels of long-term [...]
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 [...]
About 7.2 million Americans currently own traditional long-term care insurance policies, a number that’s held steady for the last seven years. But who are they? And what does it say about the future of long-term care insurance? Overall, the share of older adults who own long-term care insurance (LTCi) has barely changed since 2002, according to new research by my [...]