Social Security
Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program passed in 1935. Social Security is a social insurance program that is primarily funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA). Tax deposits are formally entrusted to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, or the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund. According to the 2012 Annual Report of the Social Security Trustees, Social Security’s expenditures exceeded non-interest income in 2010 and 2011, the first such occurrences since 1983, and the Trustees estimate that this deficit will continue. The deficit of non-interest income relative to expenditures was about $49 billion in 2010 and $45 billion in 2011, and the Trustees project that it will average about $66 billion between 2012 and 2018 before rising steeply as the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund assets in amounts that exceed interest earnings until exhaustion of trust fund reserves in 2033.
Archive Related Items

Ten Things to Keep in Mind When Discussing Social Security Reform

1/5/14
from NCPA,
1/2/14:

Followers of politics may have noticed a recent push from the left to expand Social Security benefits above and beyond the current-law growth schedule (which itself remains unfinanced). While expanding a popular program carries an obvious political utility, any reasonably careful analysis of Social Security reveals the idea to be highly problematic at best. Listed below are 10 factors to bear in mind whenever proposals to change Social Security benefits are discussed, says Charles Blahous, a senior research fellow for the Mercatus Center, a research fellow for the Hoover Institution, and a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare.

#1: On the positive side, these proposals acknowledge that the Social Security benefit formula should be changed.

#2: Social Security benefits are already increasing substantially under current law, and would continue to increase under various proposals to maintain solvency.

#3: Unless current-law benefit increases are substantially slowed, younger workers will shoulder unprecedented cost burdens.

#4: The left's latest proposals embody a conscious effort to recast the Social Security debate by adopting a policy position well outside of longstanding mainstream opinion.

#5: Looking solely at Social Security benefits is uninformative; a meaningful analysis must compare both ends of the equation -- the taxes it collects from workers as well as the benefits it later pays.

#6: Further increasing Social Security benefits does not increase total resources available to finance retirement income.

#7: Further increasing Social Security benefits for current participants would worsen existing inequities.

#8: Social Security benefits and cost burdens are already increasing faster than participants' pre-retirement income.

#9: Social Security benefits and costs have already risen to the point of destroying many individuals' ability and incentive to save.

#10: Social Security benefits are already growing so fast that Americans' reliance on Social Security for retirement income increases even as national incomes rise.

More From NCPA:



365 Days Page
Archive Related Items
Comment ( 0 )