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Social Security worked well, before cost of living overtook the benefits provided.

• kasey_junk 11y ago
  Yet most of the "viable" basic income schemes I've seen provide benefits at the social security level or less.
• toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Cost of living is not the problem (except for healthcare cost inflation, which Medicare could mitigate if someone could gut Congress of representatives preventing Medicare from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies). The problem is that everyone who collects Social Security is living longer. The question is: How can you continue to provide a high quality of life to seniors without bankrupting the country. It can be done, its simply a policy decision.
  • tamana 11y ago
    The answer is that SS age gets pushed back along with average lifespan
    • toomuchtodo 11y ago
      The answer is universal healthcare, which then becomes a sunk cost for the entire population (Medicare->OneCare). The answer is removing the social security tax cap at ~$120K (this causes SS to become solvent in perpetuity immediately). This will be done regardless if the SS fund goes broke and must be propped up with the general fund, its just how long you want to kick the can for. (EDIT: Medicare has no cap on the amount of income taxed, only Social Security) The answer is you increase basic social safety nets that have little marginal cost (there's enough food to feed everyone; distribution is the problem).
      • hapless 11y ago
        The whole point of social security is that it is a social insurance program. It's funded out of workers wages, and paid back to workers in proportion to what they paid in. If you remove the cap on social security contributions without removing the cap on payouts, how is it anything but a special surcharge on people who earn money from wages?
        • toomuchtodo 11y ago
          > If you remove the cap on social security contributions without removing the cap on payouts, how is it anything but a special surcharge on people who earn money from wages? I never said it wasn't. I can hardly shed a tear (for myself included) for anyone making over $120K/year who pays an extra few percents of tax on income to prevent elderly poverty.
          • s_q_b 11y ago
            I'm coming to appreciate the plight of the middle class at this point. How the hell am I supposed to put away enough savings for a house, retirement for two, and college savings for 2.5 kids? Between myself and my girlfriend, "household" income is around 200k. I should be exactly the person opposing these tax increases. I'm squarely in the white, male, 95% demographic. Yet, the more I look at the financial figures for the total population, the more I realize how lucky we really are. I can't conscionablely oppose paying more in taxes. I just wish the system of expenditure was more rational.
            • deleted 11y ago
              [deleted]
            • toomuchtodo 11y ago
              > Yet, the more I look at the financial figures for the total population, the more I realize how lucky we really are. I can't conscionablely oppose paying more in taxes. I just wish the system of expenditure was more rational. We agree on this.
          • hapless 11y ago
    • zanny 11y ago
      Until we reverse aging this just pushes people who should have been able to retire into the labor market longer and longer while their bodies fail. That is a terrible punishment to inflict on people who expected to be able to live their later years without suffering.
  • zanny 11y ago
    Obviously you can, because real per-capita GDP has more than doubled in forty years. The country is still growing explosively, and can obviously support much higher social security payouts, especially considering we are still spending 1/2 to 2/3 as much on defense which is mostly a monetary black hole (your returns on investment there are probably the lowest of all state expenditures). So it is important to remember that social security is not a black hole. Some people like my dad exclusively invests his, but for a lot of people it is immediately spent in the economy. The greatest economic stimulus you can produce is direct cash injection into the poor - it produces immediate real goods demand to be met. It is also why I always go crazy when people talk about "affording" a universal basic income. It is wealth redistribution, not destruction. Wealth is destroyed when it is dedicated to unproductive things, like means testing or incredible bureaucracy. The only risk UBI has is that you redistribute enough that the massive demand increase from the poor does not offset the slowdown of investment at the high end. Its a progressive curve - its not about affordability, it is about finding the maxima that matches peak social stability, equality, and individual prosperity against economic growth and investment.
  • s_q_b 11y ago
    I should clarify. My COLA statement includes increased medical costs/consumption, longer life, lack of keeping up with GDP, etc. Total lifetime costs might be better phrasing.
• refurb 11y ago
  There is an annual COL adjustment to social security.
• kafkaesq 11y ago
  Exactly.
• rconti 11y ago
  For every level of benefits, I'm pretty sure I can find a way to exceed that in my cost of living.