Will There be Social Security Benefits Left When I Retire?
For years, there has been rumor that the Social Security benefits money will run out. While a true concern, it is primarily affecting the baby-boomer generation, born between 1943 and 1952. With at least 28 more years to go before reaching the full age of retirement, not much thought has gone into the process, of how or where the money obtained is used. Having a parent that waited until the age of 70 also changed my current outlook and theory of my overall work expectancy.
Originally, the Social Security Board (SSB) put in place by the Roosevelt administration, started as an independent old age insurance program in 1935 (SSA.GOV, par. 2, n.d.). Later, in 1939 the Social Security board became a division of the Federal Security Agency (FSA), relinquishing their status as
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The part that would make me nervous is the amount of revenue that is filtered off for other governmental functions when the program if ran as intended would cover the increase in the cost of inflation. The more an individual makes, the more payroll taxes are paid to keep the flow of the monies available for use. Predicting the future is a bit hard, and as to whether or not there will be SSA funds available when I am of age to retire is unknown. With the life expectancy of the women in my family averaging in the 90's I plan to wait until as close to 70 as possible to draw my SSA benefits. One reason is that I've seen the women in my family hold regular jobs until their mid-70's, and I believe that in staying active it will keep you young. I will need to re-evaluate my lifestyle and detail a game-plan that will result in paying off my house before I am 69, and much sooner than when the 30-year mortgage is due in 2045. This will ensure that I am not living with excessive or unnecessary debt. Will there be Social Security? There better
The Townsend plan promised every American over the age of 60 and older retirement benefits of 200 dollars a month. The average income at this time for an average American was only $100 a month. With many desperate seniors joining efforts to make these schemes, such as the Townsend Plan, national, the government stepped in to develop a realistic old age pension program. The Great Depression was not the reason for the Social Security Act, but it did trigger it.
An important question that is emerging related to retirement is whether or not social security will be active in the future. As a result, it is a question that I am beginning to ask as well for many reasons; the foremost being because my generation is one that it will have a tremendous impact on. Social security benefits are often over looked; most people solely rely on social security after they retire as a replacement for income, even though social security was not created as a replacement for a job. Others claim social security benefits while still working full- or part-time; however, it is becoming evident that social security is needed for most Americans after they retire to continue living a comfortable lifestyle. If social security is not available in the future when I retire, what will be the outcome?
In article titled, “Social Security”, written by ushistory.org, it describes that pensions were extremely modest and in most cases below poverty level standards. In the book on page 809, it mentions that the first Social Security check was for $41.30. How were people surviving if these checks were extremely modest and
Even in today’s times, the American dream of having a peaceful retirement still lives on. In fact, Brandon King, the author of “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?”, talks about a survey that declares that many Americans voted for “being able to retire without struggling”. People want to secure their future or prepare for the future because of the hard times that Americans had to go through like the Great Recession and the Great Depression. Huge part of the American Dream comes from securing a
However, the government did not predict that they would already be in a 19.414 trillion deficit. Adding the financial promise of retirement and Medicare funds to the baby boomers is adding another 103.043 trillion dollars to our deficit. In order for future generations to secure their retirement, they must not depend on the government. They must
Mark Featherston a 54 year-old unemployed man says he just doesn’t see it, of living the American dream of having a house and being able to retire. Featherston demands “It’s not like in the 60s or 70s where people used to work for big companies and have a retirement plan. Nobody has a pension anymore.” Bob Wood, a 67 year-old semi-retired man says “the cost of living is going up, your food goes up, your water bill goes up...retirees are getting stressed because their savings are not producing…” Wood says he has enough money saved up for his retirement but he asserts that there are thousands of people who don’t and encounter themselves at poverty levels having to work until they just can’t do it anymore.
Many people wonder how we figure their Social Security retirement benefit. Social Security benefits are based on your lifetime earnings. SSA adjusts or “index” your actual earnings to account for changes in average wages since the year the earnings were received. Social Security then calculates your average indexed monthly earnings during the 35 years in which you earned the most and then applies a formula to these earnings and arrive at your basic benefit, or “primary insurance amount.” This is how much you would receive at your full retirement age—65 or older, depending on your date of birth (“Your Retirement Benefit: How It’s Figured”, n.d.).
After reading about the Social Security, I learned that it is not as reliable as every person thoughts it would be. There are constantly adjusting the terms and conditions for the Social Security. So by the time I am retired, I might not be eligible or receive as much income as I should. The other two options are the private pension, which is not for every worker, and personal savings. Even though we do not make additional income from our personal savings, it should be more reliable than the first two choices if I carefully manage and planned out the budgets.
Another con to replacing Social Security is that gives the person responsibility of having to make a retirement plan and being able to make investment. Many people are not capable of such decisions and many will be taking an investment risk. I support replacing Social Security with private funds because as I mentioned earlier “instead of sixteen workers paying in for every beneficiary, right now it 's only about three workers” (Reno) for social security to function to its full potential the ratio would have to be sixteen to one but the number is much less than that its only three to one and the ratio will only continue to fall. As baby boomers begin to retire it is causing the social security system to face difficulties since the baby boomers generation will be a big number of people retiring that the working class will not be able to support them (Reznik, Shoffner,
Thus, this supply and demand imbalance compounds the projected failure of social security systems challenged by the same root demographic issue. In addition, Siegel argues that globalization of financial markets promises to resolve this issue because the new generation of people in developing nations will add a market for the assets of old individuals in the advanced industrial
70 years old has been the most popular proposition of them all. The most commonly asked question is: Even if the retirement age is raised, what effect will it have on the economy? I believe raising the retirement age is a terrible idea. Despite the impression left by some, the average Social Security retirement benefit today is modest. Only $15,500 per year overall for men with an average of only $13,200 per year for women.
Introduction I. We as a human being, we age and it is said that there will be more elderly people in the future. A. According to the graph of 2012 Population Estimates and National Projections from the Current Population Report by Jennifer M. Ortman, the population aged 65 and above is projected to be 83.7 million in 2050, almost double its estimated population of
Are they kidding? That seems way too young to me. Not surprisingly, most people over 65 have a different idea about old age. Among those getting the senior citizen discount, most say old age begins at 75. Now consider the answer given by people under 30.
Our retirement is our responsibility, yet many people do not think about how they are going to spend their retirement time. More importantly, even fewer people plan on how to fund it until it is too late. If you are old enough to buy a drink at a bar, it is time to think about your retirement. In March 2013 the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) found 57% of U.S. workers have less than $25,000 in total household savings and investments, excluding their homes.
It is predicted that today, the oldest baby boomers are already in their 60s. By 2030, about one in five Americans will be older than 65, and some experts believe that the aging of the population will place a strain on social welfare