Social Security is not on the fast track for insolvency. It could easily be rescued with a few minor adjustments (including stopping this damn tax holiday bullshit and bumping up the retirement age.)

The real problem is Medicare. It's out of control, but it's lumped into Social Security for political reasons. Again, though, it too could be fixed with some relatively minor adjustments.

In neither case are there enough politicians with enough courage to actually fix the programs.

So, because no one has the political will to implement fixes, SS and Medicare are on the fast track for insolvency.

Particularly now that the Baby Boomers are taking early retirements, and will begin drawing on benefits sooner than later.

Not to mention the debt we racked up in the last 3.5 years. China is gonna want that money back at some point. Sure, we'll just inflate our debt away, but that's going to make the proceeds from your retirement/SS insufficient to keep you from having to work at walmart as a greeter.

Actually, taking early retirement saves money since you only get a partial benefit. I say make the adjustment for early retirement even worse so when all the dumb suckers take it, it saves even more money.

Not to mention the beating SS is taking due to the number of people unemployed and not paying into SS. This is not a pretty picture:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

If you start it back in 1948, you can see the rise and fall of the Boomers. This is not going to end well.

I say make the adjustment for early retirement even worse so when all the dumb suckers take it, it saves even more money.

True enough. But...that comes back to political will. Who votes? now who votes reliably? yeah, that's right, the old folks. Think they'll vote for someone who's going to cut their benefits? make them retire later? if you say yes, would you also be interested in buying a bridge in Brooklyn?

Now, my cousin just retired and he's in his early 60s. He'll probably be able to live quite comfortably on his and his wife's pensions. And take their SS when it maxes out.

Humanity - a species that proudly devours its own young.

P.S. If government officials were really "admitting" anything, they would admit that there really is no trust fund. Cash flow on these programs is already negative. (Ignore the nonsense about "interest" - that is an imaginary bookkeeping entry.)

Social Security could be fixed easily if they lifted the cap. I have to pay SS taxes on my entire income, but anything over $110,000 is tax free. The poor pay tax on their entire wages but the wealthy don't. Hardly sounds fair, does it?

You said it, Pirate Jo.

The politicians didn't save and invest all that money the government took from us baby boomers over the past 40 to 50 years. They squandered it. They used it to buy all kinds of government services and things we wanted, so that we would keep electing them. Now our money is all gone - pissed away by the crooks we elected. And now we want to have our cake and eat it too?

We baby boomers in our 50's and 60's need to face the fact that we've been screwed. Our money is gone. Maybe we deserve to have it back, like anyone who's been robbed deserves what was stolen from them. But it's morally wrong to demand that the government pay us back by stealing it from other working Americans who didn't steal it from us.

Joe said: Social Security is not on the fast track for insolvency. It could easily be rescued with a few minor adjustments (including stopping this damn tax holiday bullshit and bumping up the retirement age.)

Your first sentence is not supported by the second; that a notional reform is "easy" (except, well, politically, which is what matters) does not mean that, in its absence, the program is not on said fast track to insolvency.

That something could be fixed "easily" does not mean that it's not headed for a rapid crash if it is not.

@JoJo,

If the higher earners had to pay SS tax on all their earnings, then would you say they should receive higher benefits, having paid more in contributions? Unless you just love the idea of wealth redistribution for its own sake, I don't see how this gets us ahead.

The reason it is set up the way it is, is because it was intended to be an insurance (not savings) program to protect people against poverty in their old age. People who earn more have a lower risk of poverty in old age; hence, they don't need as much insurance. And while I get where you're coming from, does ANYONE honestly need to throw MORE money down that hopeless rathole?

Ken R, my hat's off to you. I don't encounter many Baby Boomers who possess this kind of clarity. Most of the ones I run into express some version of 'I'm entitled!' I understand that many of them have not saved up much of their own money and are frightened and desperate, but you are absolutely right. People can't just point the finger at government without acknowledging their own responsibility for electing said government.

I believe that SS in...1964 (?) '72 (?), back then somewhere, was three months away from insolvency before it was changed/adapted/saved?

I personally care more that the generation AHEAD of the Baby Boomers has their needs met-and it looks like that will occur. Baby Boomers...I'm tired of dealing w/'em. They've been a big disappointment. Wow are they gonna be unhappy. I wonder if Baby Boomers'll plow thru their deceased parent's assets & out live those assets? 'Leave little for their children & grandchildren?

Sooo I guess I have to save up & pay off a house & then rent it out for $1,000/month to rentors while I move to a 3rd world country so my $ goes further?

The average age of my patients in one hospital (across from a retirement community) is 88 years old. That's from having been born in the early 1900's, a time of less in the way of healthcare, health ed, & health resources & more in the way of wars. The quantity of 100+ yr olds I get is amazing-functioning 100 year olds! Living at home on their own at 103! W/o home health!

We're gonna have a LOT of ppl collecting SS & for a very long time-like...30 years of it.

@adambein

That is interesting. I think the average lifespan for the USA is 78 right now. I could be wrong, and I'm sure it varies depending on your current age. But if that is the right number, and if SS was currently working as it was set up, the benefit payout age would be 80, and the payroll tax would be 1%.

Back then, people either worked until they dropped or their families supported them, and if you wanted to quit your job a few years before you died then you had to save the money yourself. And after all that, by god, if you managed to live to be THAT old, then here's a public pension.

If we were really going to fix this problem, as a society we would have to return to a standard of self-sufficiency that we have not seen in decades. The majority of the population is not going to support that. They have never seen the need for it, since people generally have problems thinking ahead and figuring out that a system will fail, until it actually fails.

I'm 45. If they said anyone 45 or older has the option of SS or to opt out and they are won't get a dime back for all they paid in, but no longer have to pay SS taxes.

Anyone younger than 45 has to do their own planning and SS doesn't exist, but there is no rebate. And no further taxes.

I'd go for the opt out in a heartbeat.

I still think that we need SSDI, severely restructured, for the unfortunates who were born disabled, or were injured in their lives. Feces occurs. But that could probably be covered easily by a $20 a month payroll tax. That of course would not cover SSDI for alcoholism, druggies, obesity, or that fact that you are 4'10" and an alcoholic.

The general idea -- if I can save my own money, I'll do it. And it ain't on Wall Street.

Agreed, Jim P.

One complaint I keep hearing about letting people invest their own money is that they could lose it in the stock market.

But who says you have to invest your money in the stock market?

And people who say this are ignoring that they've already lost all the money they've paid into Social Security, so obviously the government can lose your money for you just as fast as the stock market can.

Sigivald, Social Security is not on the verge of insolvency, full stop. What is approaching IN TWO DECADES is where the expenses exceed the revenues. That doesn't mean there is no more money, it simply means that absent any other changes benefits would have to be trimmed (not cut off.)

Making relatively minor adjustments will solve the problem. Examples; removing the earnings cap, increasing the age at which you can get 100% benefits, stopping the current reduction. Beyond that, as the recession ends and unemployment rate drops, this will also go a long way toward helping the problem.