Understatement In Retirement Income Data

Currently, the United States is contemplating at a forthcoming Social Security crisis. If changes are not forged, the Social Security system will not be able to keep up with the demanded payouts and is estimated to empty the trust fund around the year 2037. In this paper I will review a brief history of the Social Security program, touch upon the eligibility requirements, discuss what economists believe about the future of the Social Security Program, and finally state the Pros and Cons to the proposed raising of the age requirement for minimum payout.

Social Security was introduced into law by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Social Security was a program which would provide financial protection to our most elderly of citizens. The program over the course of time has evolved and added new branches of protection such as child, survivor, and dependent benefits. Social Security was never created to be an answer for a comprehensive retirement package for people retiring. However in our current society with plastic cards and increasing debit to income limits, many people do not save for the future. Many citizens live for today and expect the government to take care of them when they are old and cannot fend for themselves. In 2011 the first wave of baby boomers began reaching retirement age and in turn qualifies them to begin drawing from the Social Security System. The baby boom generation makes up 25 percent of the total United States population (SSA, 2014). The projected number of people from 2011 to 2030 who will become eligible to receive Old-Age benefits from the Social Security Act will increase by 65 percent (SSA, 2014). This data is crucial in terms of determining the stability of a system that relies on the paying masses to care for the elderly few. Many Presidents in the last two decades have created and formed elaborate panels of specialized individuals to tackle the problem of the long term sustainability of the Social Security System. In order to take care of our most elderly

Notably, the elderly populace is growing rapidly, and will reach 3.4 million or 12.8% of the population. Eventually, in the next thirty years older adults will comprise of 20% of the total population due to the aging of 76 million baby boomers (Olson, 2001). Seeing that, entitlement programs and means-tested benefits, are presented, in order to bolster this increment of older adults. Accordingly, around 96% of the American workforce is secured by Social Security and it is likewise estimated that 58 million American will receive a total of $816 billion in Social Security benefits (Moody and Sasser, 2015). In fact, today 56 million or 17% of the population is enlisted in Medicare (Leonard, 2015). Therefore, this has presented an open deliberation about the eventual fate of Medicare and Social Security and regardless of whether changing Medicare and Social Security to means-tested benefits, instead of entitlement programs can resolve the policy issues.

The passing of the Social Security Act generated a social insurance program that protected a multiplicity of people by supplying a monthly benefit to societal individuals age 65 and older who were no longer actively working; it was a means of income to individuals once they retired and was based on the person’s payroll tax contribution (Martin & Weaver, 2005). The longer amount of years a person was employed, the higher their benefit amount is set to be. Social weighing was a method they used to guarantee that the lower earning people receive a respectively greater income than their past earnings. (DeWitt, 2010). Not long after the Social Security Act was passed, legislation had considerable amounts of amendments to the original Social Security Act of 1935, and in 1939 the notion of economic security became family based; which it was then modified in order to supplement benefits to the spouse or young children of a retired worker, also providing welfare to a household who lost the loved one that was a covered worker (King & Cecil, 2006). In addition, the Social Security amendments of 1939 altered the benefits to be given to earlier participants and not focusing on giving benefits to future members in the Social Security program, also causing the arrangement of welfare to be provided to families rather than just an individual (DeWitt, 2007). Social Security being emphasized as an insurance rather than a savings, and carrying payroll tax money into the future would have

Society is made up of many different people with all different views, customs, and beliefs. Even during a mother’s pregnancy, each human being is being molded and shaped differently. People grow up in different environments and parents raise their children differently. A person might have their own personality, such as being friendly or shy, but they develop to be friendly or shy based on how they grew up. From infancy till eighteen people develop a way of thinking about things and later in their lives they will use their process of thinking about issues whether politically or morally. All the different views and types of people don’t all mix together smoothly and issues arise. “Social problems are described most simply as perplexing

Contrary to popular belief, a society can be successful without being flawless. To prosper, one simply needs modest inhabitants. While utopias consist of humble citizens, they are also places with faultless economies, places of equality and perfection. On the contrary, dystopias are places of ideality where everything goes wrong. The government is typically a totalitarianism one where a self-absorbed leader degrades most inhabitants, like in Animal Farm.

Growing up as a kid, not so many young people knew much about Social Security. Some kids might have believed that is was just a nine digit card that their parents kept until they were old enough to take care of it, others knew that it was much more. Social Security is a certain percentage that comes out of your paycheck and into a system. Once it’s in the system the government uses that money that was taken out for people with certain benefits. For example, people with disabilities, foster kids and the one mostly known, retirement. Once retired, in order to receive these benefits, these people must establish that they worked the set amount of years, and also prove that the person is of the qualifying age. Due to the economy taking a big hit back in 2008 the process for obtaining your benefits has become more and more tedious. Due to this struggle, retirees will begin to worry about whether or not they will ever get the benefits they so rightfully earned and also if their rates are going to shift. Because of

The Social Security Program is a main source of income for seniors and disabled individuals in the United States. Many American citizens have thought about or heard of topics concerning Social Security most notably around election times. Economic woes and credit card purchases continue to stifle most American citizen’s ability to properly save for their future retirement needs. The methodology in this paper is a review of relevant periodicals, journals, government reports, and websites which analyze the Social Security issues facing our great nation. Most Americans are oblivious to the real truths behind this

Since the very implementation of Social Security in 1935 during the time of the Great Depression to present day, it has been a never-ending source of controversy. As mentioned by Nancy Niles, Social Security was considered “old age insurance” (Niles, 2011, p. 9). It was designed to help older Americans, workers who become disabled, and families in which a spouse or parent dies (Niles, 2011). Not only has Social Security played a very essential role in the lives of many Americans throughout the years, but has also been very important to the economic security of the United States of America.

Social security is a federal insurance program that provides benefits to retired people and those who are unemployed or disabled. Social security is, in other words, earned benefit with dedicated funding from payroll contributions paid by workers and their employers, known as the FICA tax. Generally, to be covered a worker must have worked for long enough; recently enough, and earned enough to have sufficient FICA credits, typically about 10 years. Benefits are based on the worker’s earnings history and are generally modest, averaging a little over $1,100 per month for all beneficiaries. There are three types of social security: retirement, disability, and survivor insurance. Social Security does not cover some state and municipal employees and those who are self employed. It also does not cover some foreign workers admitted temporarily to the United States. Most workers who are not covered by social security contribute to other retirement and disability funds. In recent years, there has been a study that shows America will soon not be able to pay for social security and essentially will have to give it up; however, there are also many ways to prevent from the supply of social security from running out, but some people may have problems with them. Raising income tax, taking away benefits, and having to risk paying for retirement even though they may not receive as much as they invested.

Many Americans believe that the social security program will face a crisis in this century because of funds running out. The fear of the people is that he government’s funds will be bankrupt when those people try to retire. Already a quarter of most Americans believe that they will receive no benefits from social security; what can we do about the social security problem? The reason that the problem is occurring is because of pay-as-you-go financing, demographic changes, the adoption of wage-indexing of the benefit formula in the 1970s. Due to the baby boomer generation, there are more americans retiring than ever. The younger generation has to pay for the older people retiring, but the problem is that there are less young people entering the

Plagued by a persistent barrage, an influx of incoming baby boomers who have sparingly parceled out a portion of their hard-earned fortunes year by year to support their preceding generation, so that their elders may continue to live free, prosperous lives as these elders had ensured for the generation before theirs, the United States Social Security program has acted as a self-financing aid to the nation’s retiring populations since its inception in 1935 as part of a plan to revitalize our nation under the New Deal- a program run by America’s incumbent workforce. Indeed, through stabbing Social Security tax increases, and the uncertainty of The Great Recession in 2008, it was finally their turn to receive the benefits they had paid into for so long; America’s largest

Therefore, your dependence on Social Security depends on your gender, ethnicity, and class/labor market status. If you are a women you will be penalized within Social Security for taking periods of time off work to care for children and parents because they do not recognize that as being unable to work (Wellin, Lecture: October 21). This affects many women because they are the majority of caretakers within the family. They are socialized to be caretakers at a young age by family, peers, media, and schools. I believe that Social Security should be amended to incorporate a policy for those who need to take off work to help those family members in need. Did you know that only one-third of working women have access to supplementary income besides Social Security (Wellin, Lecture: October 26)? This is most likely because that they use their savings to help take care of family members and they use that while they aren’t receiving any income. Also, women are less likely than men to receive income from private pensions; this pattern also was found in blacks and Hispanics (Quadagno: 356). Even those that received private pensions that were not white men received less benefits than those who were white men (Quadagno: 357). About 20% of Americans rely on Social Security as their only source of income, within that group of people: 18% are white elder white women, 38% elderly blacks, and 38% Hispanic (Quadagno: 100). Notice how

As many family members including grandma and grandpa, reach the age of retirement, her legal status and annual income will play a role in determining whether or not she'll be able to qualify for the 401K retirement plan that offers the most benefits. This has become the case for millions of working Americans in modern time as qualifications increase the accessibility to these benefits has diminished. Today, there are far more people working than previous years as unemployment rates have fallen. The question however, remains, are there better, far more improved retirement benefits being offered to those who work? Wrong. The National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) has wrongly came up with many

With the workforce in America decreasing due to hard economic times, there is no guarantee the money put into the reserve will sufficiently support a generation when it is time for retirement. Depending on Social Security to support a person financially when ready to retire, will leave that individual in even more of a struggle than the beneficiaries trying to survive in these earlier years of the 21 century. Social Security benefits represent about 41% of the income of the elderly; if there is not enough to support even half of the elderly’s financial needs now, there is no reason a younger person should depend on it alone for retirement (Dewitt, 2010) in the future.