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Report Shows Social Security Is Strong for the Long Term
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Despite the nation’s overall economic problems, Social Security is still in long-term strong shape, according to the most recent report by the Social Security Board of Trustees. The trustees project that after 2037, tax revenue will be sufficient to pay 78 percent of full benefits. The projected funding shortfall over 75 years is actually lower than in last year’s report.
Also, a report by Medicare’s Board of Trustees shows that the recently enacted health care reform law will significantly slow Medicare cost growth, thereby extending the life of Medicare’s trust fund for 12 years, reducing Part B premiums and reducing the federal deficit.
Social Security’s $2.5 trillion trust fund will continue to grow for another 14 years and Social Security will pay out full benefits from its own dedicated resources for another 27 years, according to the report.
Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
The reports are a needed comeuppance to right-wing, ideological opponents of Social Security and Medicare who, year after year, twist the facts to undermine public confidence in these essential programs, hoping that this will lessen public resistance to their wildly unpopular agenda of benefit cuts, privatization, and vouchers.
The report is not likely to slow what Nancy Altman and Eric Kingston, co-chairs of the just-launched coalition Strengthen Social Security…Don’t Cut It, call the growing drumbeat that has
convinced much of the political and media elite that Social Security is in crisis, unaffordable, out of date, and should be changed fundamentally—or at the very least, cut back for those not yet retired.
Click here to read their recent op-ed in the Cap Times.
The federal budget deficit commission, by all accounts, is considering benefits cuts, including raising the retirement age, even though as the AFL-CIO told a House Ways and Means committee hearing last month, Social Security “is not a principal contributor to deficits in the short or the long term.”
Electrical Workers (IBEW) President Edwin Hill writes in a Huffington Post column this week that along with anti-Social Security politicians like House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), Wall Street also is singing in the benefit-cut chorus.
Former Lehman Brothers chief executive Peter Peterson is launching a multi-million dollar campaign to convince voters that without immediate cutbacks to Social Security benefits, our country faces imminent financial collapse.
In addition, Hill writes that “a swath of new Tea Party-inspired” GOP candidates have
gone on record in support of privatizing Social Security, including Senate candidates Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky… [and Ohio Rep. John Boehner] have dodged the question about whether or not the GOP will try to privatize Social Security if it takes over Congress in November.
Altman says politicians “should stop scaring the American people.”
Social Security is strong and should be strengthened, not cut. The reality is the biggest threat to Social Security is the politicians in Washington who continue to play politics with this issue.
The Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) has launched a new campaign to send a message to every politician in Washington—Hands off Social Security!
You can click here to sign the petition that tells lawmakers:
We need to strengthen Social Security, not cut it. That is why I oppose any cuts to Social Security benefits, including increasing the retirement age. I also oppose any effort to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part.
CAF is partnering with MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Credo Action and the Teamsters to send the messages.
Also, as part of the upcoming 75th anniversary (Aug. 14) of Social Security being signed into law, the Alliance for Retired Americans wants to hear your stories about how Social Security has made a difference in your life—or positively impacted a family member, neighbor or friend. It could be a
- A story about you, a family member, a friend or a neighbor.
- A story about Social Security helping a family survive after a tragedy
- A story about Social Security making retirement possible.
If you are a younger worker who would be affected by cuts in Social Security benefits or raising the retirement age—especially if you are one of 78 million Americans who does not have a retirement plan through your employer or has a 401(k) slammed by the economy, you can submit you concerns and worries about Social Security too.
You can submit your story to the American Stories Project here.
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6 Comments
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$2.5 trillion? How many tax cuts for the rich can we make with this loot?
I guess we will have to await the release of Obama’s Debt Committees report.
Our march toward civilization has always included government support for the weak and unluckey. Without this there would be total anarchy which I believe the Republicans want. Survival of the fitests and death for the weak. They are truly neanderthals and should be defeated where ever possible.
Top 5 Social Security Myths
Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.
Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a ‘T’). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it’ll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits—and again, that’s without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers’ retirement decades ago.2 Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.
Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago.3 What’s more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly—since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half.4 But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.
Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
Reality: Social Security doesn’t need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here’s a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come.5 Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income.6 But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.
Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs
Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn’t full of IOUs, it’s full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.7 The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market—which would have been disastrous—but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.
Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit
Reality: It’s not just wrong—it’s impossible! By law, Social Security’s funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can’t add one penny to the deficit.8
Defeating these myths is the first step to stopping Social Security cuts. Can you share this list now?
Sources:
1.”To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security,” New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89703&id=22140-3622808-9ybxFAx&t=4
2. “The Straight Facts on Social Security,” Economic Opportunity Institute, September 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89704&id=22140-3622808-9ybxFAx&t=5
3. “Social Security and the Age of Retirement,” Center for Economic and Policy Research, June 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89705&id=22140-3622808-9ybxFAx&t=6
4. “More on raising the retirement age,” Washington Post, July 8, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89706&id=22140-3622808-9ybxFAx&t=7
5. “Social Security is sustainable,” Economic and Policy Institute, May 27, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89707&id=22140-3622808-9ybxFAx&t=8
6. “Maximum wage contribution and the amount for a credit in 2010,” Social Security Administration, April 23, 2010
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240
7. “Trust Fund FAQs,” Social Security Administration, February 18, 2010
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html
8.”To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security,” New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89703&id=22140-3622808-9ybxFAx&t=9
BTW, someone else commented about waiting for Obama’s Debt Committee report, I wouldn’t wait for that, it’s packed with rethugs who would sell their own mother down the river to kill Social Security and Medicare. What an absolute farce that committee is, and those criminals who are sitting on it.
mtravali says it all. this is the most informative post yet.
If any cuts are made to Social Security or Medicare take place when there are over 250 Democrats in the House and 59 Democrat Senators—we can say without hesitation there is no party for the working class—only two parties representing the top two percent.The AflL-CIO blog is great and the comments of mtravali are super—but is not the time now for the AFL to mobilize and commit resources to expose members of both parties and the PRESIDENT who anointed two chairmen hell bent to represent the interests of finance capital .
Replace the existing income cap on taxable social security income and create a lifetime max contribution. An athelete or entertainer who makes millions of dollars for a few years and their employer pay no more than a wage earner at the cap. These individuals can also become diabled or impoverished and get SS benefits even though they work only a few years at high income.