As the midterm elections approach, why isn’t their more interest in the approaching U.S. Social Security and Medicare policy abyss?
In 2020, Social Security provided retirement, disability and survivor benefits to some 416,500 Mississippians with monthly benefits averaging $1,420 per month or $17,161 annually. That means that Social Security injects $7.147 billion into Mississippi’s economy – substantially more than the state-funded portion of the state budget.
Medicare, the federally sponsored health insurance program for older Americans, served some 604,000 Mississippians as their primary source of health care finance.
The Social Security Trustees Report projects that the 86-year-old program can only meet its obligations to retirees until 2035 – after which Congress must either shore up the program’s finances or see benefit reductions of between 21% to 27%.
Medicare is projected to only be able to meet its obligations through 2026 without congressional intervention and without it, scheduled benefits will be reduced by 10%. In the wake of COVID, the problems plaguing health care provision and delivery are such that money is only one of a myriad of challenges.
Inflation and supply chain pressures are hammering health care costs. And the reality of how Americans pay for health care is hammering governments at both the federal and state levels.
One simple set of facts bode ominously for Social Security, Medicare (and Medicaid) and government officials seeking to solve these challenges.
First, Social Security and Medicare constitute north of 41% of all federal expenditures. Second, the senior demographic of those eligible for the programs is growing and science is helping them live longer.
Third, in 1950 there were 120 workers paying into the program for every one retired worker drawing a pension. By 2035, it is projected that there will be only 2.3 workers paying into the program for each retiree drawing a pension.
Is it any wonder that the American Association of Retired Persons report that some 57 percent of Americans aren’t confident in the future of Social Security? Last month, North Carolina financial planner Michael Baughman told an AARP analyst: “Those who tend to distrust the government have less faith that Social Security will be there for them in its current form. And as you work with younger clients, there is even less confidence.”
All the way back to the creation of the program during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Social Security was never intended as the sole support of retired workers. It was created as a safety net, a minimum baseline of economic support for the elderly.
The notion of retirees easing into their retirement years on the “three-legged stool” of personal savings, a strong pension from the employer, and Social Security benefits is for many of retirement age becoming a four-legged stool based on part-time or full-time work in so-called retirement years.
And the pension leg of the old retirement stool has wobbled as state and private pension plans have struggled and increasing pressure has been put on workers for investment. As one financial analyst reading this trend observed, the new retirement three-legged stool “is you, you, and you.”
Inflation, economic upheavals in the wake of global pandemic and the resulting supply chains impacts on the global economy have been critically impactful on the reasonable futures of the Social Security and Medicare programs. In states with endemic poverty like Mississippi, that impact is heightened.
What is certain, as pointed out in a 2021 Wall Street Journal editorial headlined “It’s the Entitlements, Stupid!”: “Entitlements always grow over time, as politicians add benefits and expand eligibility.”
That, in one sentence, is the story of what happened to FDR’s vision of a stable Social Security leg of the old “three-legged stool” for retirees in America that is now a program that is unsustainable without major changes.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com
18 comments:
Thanks Sid. Everything happening is all by design and once you start adding in all the theft and fraud from our elected officials who don't give a shit or even realize they could prevent "the great reset"...........ughhhhh, it is over. Imagine all the people...starving and stealing food....who who who you may say i'm a tin foil hat but i'm not the only one...
There's no time to discuss such minutia on this blog...The admin and his harpies are too embroiled in the imaginary fate of PERS to discuss two programs at one time...much less three or four.
"Entitlements." One of the cringiest things about the United States government.
I'm drawing SS now and will likely check out prior to the 2035 melt down.
Good luck to the rest of Ya'll
And these dang SS lawyers who will get you everything you deserve aren't helping the situation. SS disability is too easy to get. Too many able bodied people under the age of 65 are not working and have adapted a life style that their monthly checks will support.
The federal government is spending over 40 percent of its budget on things the federal government has no business being involved in. Also, look at how the federal government treats the money it takes in compared to how it treated money 50 years ago. The nation once had a cash reserve, minimal debt and very low deficits. Today, politicians are sitting on a mountain of debt, and yet they still act like money is dirt on the floor - they find a way to make it disappear and do so quickly.
It's all part of the plan.
The easiest was to get SS disability is to be morbidly obese-
Its the Missisippppi way.
@9:01 Careful mentioning "Great Reset" or "Klaus Schwab" to these non-reading troglodytes, as these are que words which trigger a response with the pejorative term which is nothing more than a neurolinguistic tool of thought and inquiry suppression the vulgar and profane like to hide their ignorance behind. Once you get past the frustration of their rejection of knowledge though, you can find much humor in their comments. Just remember "it is for lack of knowledge" and their outright "rejection of knowledge" that they will perish and with your "wisdom and knowledge come much sorrow".
@11:25
You didn’t know a thing about Klaus Schwab three years ago. WEF Davos has been a thing for 20 years. Why are you people just now talking about it? Why do you think that all of the sudden you have a new boogeyman instead of George Soros? Because they want you to focus on Klaus Schwab. And like George Soros before him, they will soon give you a new reason to chase your own tail.
Meanwhile, Lord and Lady Rothschild are enjoying their daily bloodfeast with their subordinates, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles.
IMO there is nothing worse than a morbidly obese 30 something smoker playing bingo on his SS disability.
"...the vulgar and profane like to hide their ignorance behind."
11:25 - I think you meant to say, "...behind which the vulgar and profane like to hide their ignorance."
Seems more grammatically correct now but, admittedly, makes no more sense.
Just keep the Russians money and tax Musk and his buddies a flat 10% and this problem is solved . Nobody in Mississippi has to pay a dime.
Any discussion of the upcoming major changes to SS or MC gets in the way of the list of trillions more for new social programs and the Green New Deal. Therefore, the national press won’t talk about it.
To the ignorant people who hate SS Disability: It often takes at least 3 attempts to get a disability order, and many people on disability, including my sister, also hold part time jobs to make ends meet.
@11:42....11:25 here. You're correct. Klaus is the mouthpiece for the real wizards behind the curtain, but the "open conspiracy" is pretty well articulated in his books. Yes, Soros is on the same team, flooding Western (Christian) civilization with incompatible cultures to destroy the same. The Jesuit pope is a crypto-Sabbatean and yes, we cast pearls of wisdom to swine.....but we might spark the interest of a few who are willing to seek to find. All this Great Reset "Beast System" must come to pass though as prophesized. So stopping it...forget it....the goal is to not be deceived and end up on the wrong side by being ignorant, as I see it.
@3:09
We…?
😂 Your facebook conspiracy theory group is actually a honeypot.
2:21 : Ahhhhhh, so she can work. Just easier to work sometimes and collect disability. Many of us here know lots of folks running the same scam.
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