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Before Social Security, over 70% of seniors died in poverty. Today, that number is less than 10%. The amount of transfer payments to the elderly is so much lar

by s_q_b 11y ago

Before Social Security, over 70% of seniors died in poverty. Today, that number is less than 10%. The amount of transfer payments to the elderly is so much larger than to any other age group, but unless you're willing to let those below the median income die in abject poverty, it's necessary.

hitekker 11y ago
I agree with you, but do you have more sources that convey the full impact of Social Security?
- s_q_b 11y ago
  Basic stats: http://www.cbpp.org/archives/4-8-99socsec.htm http://www.cbpp.org/archives/4-8-99socsec.htm You can go a lot deeper on this. Even today, about 50% of seniors would be below the poverty level without Social Security. That's mostly okay, because the majority of seniors have the major expenses covered by guaranteed benefit pensions, Medicare and private savings, usually in the form of a house. But things would get pretty grim without the government programs.
  - thinkmoore 11y ago
    Whose parents have a guaranteed benefit pension these days? As far as private savings, those disappear almost immediately in the face of a medical disaster. Things are pretty grim indeed without the government programs (Social Security and Medicare).
    - s_q_b 11y ago
      My grandfather has two guaranteed benefit pensions: one FBI and one as chief of local police. But you're right, they're vanishingly rare for anyone in the private sector under 80. Bankruptcy by medical disaster should be averted by Medicare and a supplementary plan, assuming it's late enough in life. Slightly earlier, and yeah, your savings can vanish.
  - bradleyjg 11y ago
    What about assets? The highest median net worth cohort is households headed by those 65-69, second by those 70-74, third by 75 and older. (as of 2011) It's one thing to give welfare to older people who can't work to keep them off the streets and quite another to give them welfare so they can give lavish inheritances to their children.
    - s_q_b 11y ago
      Assets are a great point. Much like lifting the cap on earnings tax, assets should factor into the payout equation, much like they affect student grants.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  http://www.epi.org/blog/social-security-effective-anti-poverty-program/ http://www.epi.org/blog/social-security-effective-anti-pover... http://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/policy-basics-top-ten-facts-about-social-security http://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/policy-basics-t...
6stringmerc 11y ago
I'm not an advocate of "debtors prisons" as a traditional concept, but I'm also very reluctant to sympathize with those living on a fixed income who refuse to pick up and move to an area where the cost of living adequately aligns with their financial means. As in, if a person is old and broke, they should be grateful to have the freedom to move to a cheap place to live, not bemoan that they can no longer afford their house near the beach or whatever. I'm hoping there is some kind of reckoning whereby these poverty-destined seniors can be inevitably moved to dense housing and care facilities for cost-effectiveness...well, not counting the immense medical bills they'll probably try to rack up on their way out the door. Want that new hip at 74? Sure, just pay for it all out of your pocket. Might sound cruel, but strangling the youth to feed the elderly, as would be the alternative, doesn't work in the US economic model.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Is this parody? Or are you being serious? EDIT: Really, I can't tell.
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    For about 5 years, I volunteered with the elderly in rest homes. I saw what happens to us as we get old, infirm, sick, and lose the last of our mental faculties. I'm being somewhat serious, in that I've watched the elderly closely and believe they will vote en masse for their own desires and interests until the younger generations are completely unable to survive. I'd probably shock you by also holding a belief that voting and driving are two things senior citizens should prove competent to do in order to continue to be allowed to do them in society.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > For about 5 years, I volunteered with the elderly in rest homes. Your personal experiences of the elderly in rest homes are probably not a representative sample of the elderly in society, for all the usual reasons that personal experiences aren't representative, plus the fact that elderly in rest homes themselves are likely not representative of elderly in society.
hiram112 11y ago
There's a lot that can be done to lower the amount we spend on the elderly. Something like 50% of health care costs are spent on a small minority of the population in their last year or two of life. Anecdotally, my grandmother who worked as a state nurse for about 15 years (which is less than I've worked now that I'm in my mid 30's) received a golden pension higher than the average salary in the US along with 100% free health insurance. In the last few years of her life she used probably a million dollars in health services - new hips, massive amounts of brand medication, ear specialists, eye specialists, and finally the last few weeks of life sustaining care in the hospital. She did not die in poverty. In fact, for the last 30 years of her non-working life, she enjoyed better medical care and a standard of living far better than any of her grandkids who were paying for her.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Given the option would you agree to get a 100% exemption from paying taxes while your grandmother was alive on the condition she would receive non of those benefits?

by s_q_b 11y ago

hitekker 11y ago

I agree with you, but do you have more sources that convey the full impact of Social Security?

s_q_b 11y ago
Basic stats: http://www.cbpp.org/archives/4-8-99socsec.htm http://www.cbpp.org/archives/4-8-99socsec.htm You can go a lot deeper on this. Even today, about 50% of seniors would be below the poverty level without Social Security. That's mostly okay, because the majority of seniors have the major expenses covered by guaranteed benefit pensions, Medicare and private savings, usually in the form of a house. But things would get pretty grim without the government programs.
- thinkmoore 11y ago
  Whose parents have a guaranteed benefit pension these days? As far as private savings, those disappear almost immediately in the face of a medical disaster. Things are pretty grim indeed without the government programs (Social Security and Medicare).
  - s_q_b 11y ago
    My grandfather has two guaranteed benefit pensions: one FBI and one as chief of local police. But you're right, they're vanishingly rare for anyone in the private sector under 80. Bankruptcy by medical disaster should be averted by Medicare and a supplementary plan, assuming it's late enough in life. Slightly earlier, and yeah, your savings can vanish.
- bradleyjg 11y ago
  What about assets? The highest median net worth cohort is households headed by those 65-69, second by those 70-74, third by 75 and older. (as of 2011) It's one thing to give welfare to older people who can't work to keep them off the streets and quite another to give them welfare so they can give lavish inheritances to their children.
  - s_q_b 11y ago
    Assets are a great point. Much like lifting the cap on earnings tax, assets should factor into the payout equation, much like they affect student grants.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
http://www.epi.org/blog/social-security-effective-anti-poverty-program/ http://www.epi.org/blog/social-security-effective-anti-pover... http://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/policy-basics-top-ten-facts-about-social-security http://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/policy-basics-t...

6stringmerc 11y ago

I'm not an advocate of "debtors prisons" as a traditional concept, but I'm also very reluctant to sympathize with those living on a fixed income who refuse to pick up and move to an area where the cost of living adequately aligns with their financial means. As in, if a person is old and broke, they should be grateful to have the freedom to move to a cheap place to live, not bemoan that they can no longer afford their house near the beach or whatever. I'm hoping there is some kind of reckoning whereby these poverty-destined seniors can be inevitably moved to dense housing and care facilities for cost-effectiveness...well, not counting the immense medical bills they'll probably try to rack up on their way out the door. Want that new hip at 74? Sure, just pay for it all out of your pocket. Might sound cruel, but strangling the youth to feed the elderly, as would be the alternative, doesn't work in the US economic model.

DanBC 11y ago
Is this parody? Or are you being serious? EDIT: Really, I can't tell.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  For about 5 years, I volunteered with the elderly in rest homes. I saw what happens to us as we get old, infirm, sick, and lose the last of our mental faculties. I'm being somewhat serious, in that I've watched the elderly closely and believe they will vote en masse for their own desires and interests until the younger generations are completely unable to survive. I'd probably shock you by also holding a belief that voting and driving are two things senior citizens should prove competent to do in order to continue to be allowed to do them in society.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > For about 5 years, I volunteered with the elderly in rest homes. Your personal experiences of the elderly in rest homes are probably not a representative sample of the elderly in society, for all the usual reasons that personal experiences aren't representative, plus the fact that elderly in rest homes themselves are likely not representative of elderly in society.

hiram112 11y ago

There's a lot that can be done to lower the amount we spend on the elderly. Something like 50% of health care costs are spent on a small minority of the population in their last year or two of life. Anecdotally, my grandmother who worked as a state nurse for about 15 years (which is less than I've worked now that I'm in my mid 30's) received a golden pension higher than the average salary in the US along with 100% free health insurance. In the last few years of her life she used probably a million dollars in health services - new hips, massive amounts of brand medication, ear specialists, eye specialists, and finally the last few weeks of life sustaining care in the hospital. She did not die in poverty. In fact, for the last 30 years of her non-working life, she enjoyed better medical care and a standard of living far better than any of her grandkids who were paying for her.

dogma1138 11y ago
Given the option would you agree to get a 100% exemption from paying taxes while your grandmother was alive on the condition she would receive non of those benefits?