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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChained CPI is not a cut to social security...
Chained CPI is not a single cut to social security.
Chained CPI is a cut to social security every year, year after year, cut after bloody cut, compounded, and guaranteed. No matter how little the check is it will get smaller. No matter how broke people are or how worthless their checks become, under chained CPI the check will be cut yet again. That's what chained CPI does. It's not one cut, it's a cut a year until the program is gone.
Some are wondering why anyone would want to do this. The answer is simple:
Under chained CPI a person in their twenties or thirties or fourties will be paying into a program that will pay them nothing. Once it passes the fine folks on Wall Street are going to point this out -- after all, the entire point of doing this is to help Wall Street get their hands on the money. Thanks to Obama's chained CPI there will be no good reason not to privatize the thing. People will have the following options:
A. Stick with the current system, in which case you are GUARANTEED nothing
B. Privitize and give Wall Street the money, in which case you MIGHT get something. You might not, but you might, and that chance -- however slight -- is better than no chance at all.
That's what the Wall Street guys and the media will say, and as it happens it will be true. Chained CPI is not a cut to Social Security, it is the end of Social Security. It is the death of a thousand cuts.
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yourout
(7,528 posts)Old Codger
(4,205 posts)I will make sure to donate to the opponent of any one who votes for it..
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)They don't deserve to be in office. They are suppose to be there to represent the people...not wall street.
I don't have a lot but will funnel it to the right places when I can
PinkFloyd
(296 posts)I won't turn out for them on election day. Really, if they're going to vote like an R, I'm going to treat them like an R and give them the same vote that I would give an R, which is none.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Under chained CPI a person in their twenties or thirties or fourties will be paying into a program that will pay them nothing. Once it passes the fine folks on Wall Street are going to point this out -- after all, the entire point of doing this is to help Wall Street get their hands on the money. Thanks to Obama's chained CPI there will be no good reason not to privatize the thing. People will have the following options:
A. Stick with the current system, in which case you are GUARANTEED nothing
B. Privitize and give Wall Street the money, in which case you MIGHT get something. You might not, but you might, and that chance -- however slight -- is better than no chance at all.
That's what the Wall Street guys and the media will say, and as it happens it will be true. Chained CPI is not a cut to Social Security, it is the end of Social Security. It is the death of a thousand cuts.
...this is a plot to destroy Social Security? Really? I can think of several, first one being that the point you make is bullshit. There is no reason to privatize Social Security.
"Once it passes"? Who's going to vote to destroy Social Security? Have you seen the proposal?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)from the first time I Googled to find out who Geithner really is and discovered that Pete Peterson headed the committee that appointed Geithner to the Fed.
Pete Peterson pulls a lot of springs, and Obama is jumping around at the end of some of them.
Sorry. But some conspiracy theories are true.
And many of those that are true have to do with money -- like the Franklin S&L, Vatican Bank, Ambrosia Bank scandal and like the more recent mortgage scandal. These are real conspiracies.
And the attack on Social Security has been ongoing since the 1930s. Bush wanted to privatize it but was to unpopular to succeed. So Wall Street backed Obama and here we are.
If you think there is no proof this is not a well thought-out plan, I'd like to see your evidence. This has been in the making since 2008.
And it is very shameful for Obama because he said in the debates in 2008 in an exchange with Hillary that was posted here today that he favored raising the cap and not cutting benefits.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"If you think there is no proof this is not a well thought-out plan, I'd like to see your evidence. This has been in the making since 2008. "
I simply don't think this plan will pass.
Boehner is never going to agree to the President's proposal.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022623491
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)He will offer his own, which includes chained CPI and even broader cuts to social programs, "offset" with perhaps a tiny military cut or the elimination of some corporate welfare program. They'll go back and forth, and they will eventually reach some kind of grand compromise in which everyone can blame everyone else and only accomplishment is some joint announcement that they have worked together to "save" social security.
Wall Street wants to play with that money, and the only way they can get their hands on it is if they first eliminate the "security" from social security. Once they manage that it's only a matter of time before they win it all.
If it were purely about politics and not catering to Wall Street, Beohner and every GOP talking head would come out monday with a denounciation of Obama and a solemn pledge to protect American Seniors from the Obama's plan to trash their precious social security. In 2014 you'd see every Republican campaigning as the Social Security protectors. But they wont, because they work for the same people Obama does.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I and other seniors have a lot at stake.
Social Security means so much to Americans.
If nothing else, this is a huge PR fiasco for Obama.
I was in Ohio right after the election last year. Republican seniors were claiming that Obama wanted to cut Social Security, etc. Well, I guess Obama is going out of his way to prove them right. What a fool.
He is smart on some issues but this is a huge blunder.
It doesn't make any difference what the Republicans don't do.
Obama has proved himself to be someone whom seniors cannot trust.
This will hurt Democrats in 2014 -- really badly.
And yes, this was planned from the get-go and the appointment of Timothy Geithner to Treasury, the office that oversees the Social Security Trust Fund after he failed miserably at overseeing the NY Fed, is the proof.
This is a case of bad faith. Really, really bad faith.
byeya
(2,842 posts)right now. I will be interested to see what progressive Dems in office do.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)nor did FDR get 100% of what he wanted neither did LBJ who was far more liberal than FDR
life is a compromise
freedom from compromise is what a dictator does
and why if this happens would it hurt democratic candidates? wouldn't it mean the house, which has more republicans, would get hurt worse as they in bigger numbers would have voted for it?
My more relevant concern is about all the people who die from guns in the street who will never reach senior status as, well, they are dead.
Do I assume you too want to rid the streets of all bullets and guns?
More important than any dollar amount, is making it to senior years,you would have to agree.
Bullets take that away.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Because regardless of the reality, the message now is that Obama and the Democrats want to cut Social Security.
The Republicans have not acted so boldly or so aggressively on cutting Social Security as has Obama.
It's a doggone shame.
I want gun control not gun abolition. There are legitimate reasons for having and using a gun. So I don't want a total ban on guns and ammunition.
I think background checks will be a bit useless. Psychologists and lawyers already have a duty to report threats when they believe it is warranted.
We need to change the attitudes in our society toward others if we want to make it less violent. And the first places we should start are in imbuing in the public the desire to protect the very young and the very old.
Obama is so wrong on this.
You do not compromise when it comes to the very young and the very old. You show compassion for them and hope that compassion will spread and be shown by people in our country toward all others.
Obama is way out of bounds on his stance on Social Security and Medicare. I am responsible for what I say and do. So is he. The Republicans do not take responsibility for much of anything but their own interests. We have to show America that there is a better way. Obama has failed us in that respect.
Do you think that slavery would ever have been abolished if the North had compromised with the South? Let me assure you that it would not. It would have spread.
There are moral boundaries in life. Cutting Social Security and privatizing the schools transgress the moral boundaries of our society.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)
shireen
(8,333 posts)Well said!!!
BainsBane
(53,034 posts)It's a different way of calculating inflation. Yes, it cuts benefits, but why do you say people in their 20s and 30 will receive nothing?
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)It will keep coming. The recipients will get something. But over time, the amount they get will be less and less, compared with the costs of things, particularly health care.
So a young person looking at the horrible return on their hard earned dollars might be more agreeable to privatizing Social Security (meaning turning it into something like a 401k).
I don't know if that would be the effect, but it's something to think about.
If you cut something enough, it "withers on the vine," to quote a Republican years ago, when speaking of the effect of his proposed cuts to Medicare.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)If a can of friskies increases from a dollar to a buck and a quarter, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics decides a can of Walmart "Great Value" catfood is the same thing and that's now a buck, chained CPI will show that there was no increase in prices at all. Real costs jumped but your check stays the same.
And the next year, if the Great Value catfood jumps to a buck and a quarter, but they find some Chinese Melamine Enriched Kitty Glop in the dollar store for a buck, the same thing will happen again. And again. And again. Every single year.
That's how they are "saving" money.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)and with the insurance dropping, and the doctors bills dropping, and once guns are gone from the streets, less chance of dying young from guns, more and more will live a life of wellness
though those rebels with straws want to biggulp 1560 calories in 90 minutes and have doctors bills up the yingyang for years more
If people stop overindulging on Twinkees, their medications won't be needed for lots of illness.
Yet the same people who cry authoritarian, who cry totalitarianism, who cry nanny state
refuse to want wellness.
100 dollars saved from doctor bills a week, is alot more than a few dollars more rise in something else.
Anyone under 45 or 50 who is not disabled should not expect future #s to be the same the next how many years til they are seniors.
Is the price of a subway token in NYC still 5 cents like it was in FDR's time?
tech3149
(4,452 posts)I had been living with my aged parents for the last few years. Mostly to keep them independent because of physical problems. They had fair retirement accounts. Probably about equal to their SS payment. That left them some leeway to deal with the unexpected. With me being there I could deal with maintenance items that could have cost them three times as much. I got tired of hearing the "I'm glad you're here" stuff because I felt like the lucky one.
Chained CPI will just reduce those payouts year after year after year. I've been dealing with the paperwork for the last few months and if the SS were cut back by a few % it would have hit the discretionary budget. These were people who grew up in the last depression. They had the skills and the attitude to deal with that. I was the muscle to get at least most of it done.
The real problem was the medication expenses. Every time they did some change to medication or a trip to family practice wasn't what they expected, the bills just kept coming but the results just weren't there.
I think that goes to that pay for service mentality of the DRG/ pay for service rather than a more balanced or pay for results sort of system.
I'm lucky because I had retirement assets that just might get me over the hump but the next few years will be extremely hard because if I take the SS payout and use my retirement assets for minimal tax responsibility, I'm not sure if I can get to that magic age that I think I might die. Fortunately my biggest retirement asset was recently moved to an annuity with a guaranteed monthly payout no matter how long I live. I just don't want to touch that for another 7 years.
Back to the original argument, if my parents were still here and their SS and remaining other retirement funds had been used up, the homestead would be foreclosed on or we'd have to pay taxes that we couldn't afford.
dkf
(37,305 posts)other countries make and our seniors are good to go.
It's all about health care.
PinkFloyd
(296 posts)It is definitely all about HC. My senior dad has to take 2 different drugs that cost him about 700 a bottle, each. Yet Canada has those same drugs for 250 combined! Seriously, 1400ish vs 250. By not having price controls, we're paying for all the countries that do have them.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Each year becomes a new baseline, and no matter how low inflation is (and we all know the official inflation numbers have not really kept up with the actual costs) the increase in social security under chained CPI will fall short. That's the point -- that's how it "saves" social security. Every year, year after year, the benefits will fall further and further behind where they should have been had they kept up with inflation.
For someone just beginning to collect now it won't matter a lot at first, but if he lives long enough it will begin to add up. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the difference is about 3% per decade between the chained CPI and the more traditional consumer price index. This, however, does not tell the full story, as chained CPI has no fixed basket of goods, but allows substitution. For example, and this is ficticious, if a pound of lean hamburger increases at a rate of 10%, chained CPI swaps to a pound of ultra-fat gristle burger and says infation remained flat, and it continues this process swapping products as necessary to make the claim. In short, there's no objective standard other than it must be less than the actual CPI.
There are two additional massive problems. The first is that low income recipients rely on SS for the majority of their income and they have already made any substitutions they can. Second, for the elderly, their biggest expense increases come from healthcare and medicine, two areas where substitution is not really possible.
TLDR? The point of the bill, the "savings," comes by artificially reducing the size of people's checks, every year, below what those should have increased in order to keep up with inflation. It does this continuously, nibbling away at benefits, with a new baseline established whenever it is calculated. Over time, and how much time is anyone's guess, the value drops to the point that they are no longer worth the effort to defend.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)BainsBane
(53,034 posts)That was very clear. I don't see why they don't just raise the cap on contributions, other than of course the GOP won't agree.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)<...>
TLDR? The point of the bill, the "savings," comes by artificially reducing the size of people's checks, every year, below what those should have increased in order to keep up with inflation. It does this continuously, nibbling away at benefits, with a new baseline established whenever it is calculated. Over time, and how much time is anyone's guess, the value drops to the point that they are no longer worth the effort to defend.
...problem with your theory: You're describing a scenario intended to support the OP, but all it shows is that benefits will grow a lot slower, meaning the payouts will lessen and a surplus will build over time. In fact, your scenario creates a rapidly growing surplus as benefits drop.
A massive surplus will not lead to privatization efforts. It would likely lead to people realizing that they were wrong about formula.
Still, this proposal has no chance of passing.
Boehner is never going to agree to the President's proposal.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022623491
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)People do not buy features, they buy benefits. Solvency or insolvency is a feature, the benefits is, well, the benefits paid out in the form of Social SECURITY.
But what if someone -- say a clever and serious Wall Street shill or media talking head -- shows that this benefit is not actually a benefit at all, and that continuing with the program -- solvent or not -- will not provide the security promised in the name Social Security? Let's say, for example, chained CPI passes, and in a year or two we offer the following two deals:
Option A: give the government 15% of every penny you earn, for your entire working life, and when you hit 70 they'll give you back enough money every month to buy a bag of generic groceries to eat in your cardboard box home -- a bag of groceries that will get smaller every year until you die.
Option B: Give the government 15% and they will invest it in YOUR NAME in an indexed fund in the markets -- and when you retire you will have that money plus all the growth it has earned over that period.
Which sounds like a better deal? And will anyone say that option A sure does sound solvent! Of course it's solvent, it's a rip off. But who, other than government accountants, cares about that anyway. The current promise of Social Security is that there will be enough money for you to live on. Guaranteed. Inflation or no, recession or no, there will be enough there, and if inflation goes through the roof your check will too. That's the promise: security. Chained CPI promises something completely different.
It promises that you will get some amount (in terms of purchasing power or value) LESS than a current recipient receives today, and that the longer you have to wait to begin collecting, the further behind you will be. Since no one other than Fox News hosts and President Obama believes SS recipients are living high on the hog, this plan obviously doesn't sound all that great. And the younger someone is the more ridiculous the plan will appear.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"But what if someone -- say a clever and serious Wall Street shill or media talking head -- shows that this benefit is not actually a benefit at all"
...at this point you're simply posting nonsense. Chained CPI, as bad as it is, has nothing to do with the actual benefit. It's a change in the calculation of inflation.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2624392
You're posting a nonsense to try to justify your theory about privatization, which is nonsense. The payroll taxes don't change, and as long as the benefits payout slows in relation to the current calculation, the surplus will build accordingly.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)smell a con until they have been completely had, and sometimes not even then. Of course this is just one stepping stone toward the end game of moving the SS funds to Wall Street where large portions of it can be siphoned off in management fees at best, or stolen wholesale through elaborate investment scams.
Webster Green
(13,905 posts)A couple of words in the subject line, then a long quote of someone's post, followed by the remainder of the paragraph you started in the subject line.
WTF must you do that? Is it supposed to be clever or something? It's really fucking weird. 
Skittles
(153,164 posts)he's a PRO at it 
ProSense
(116,464 posts)she's "a PRO at it."
Hey, but thanks for paying such close attention to my posting habits. I'm flattered.
Skittles
(153,164 posts)I APOLOGIZE for that slam 
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"WTF must you do that? Is it supposed to be clever or something? It's really fucking weird."
...if I care what you think is "fucking weird"?
Webster Green
(13,905 posts)I beg you to cease & desist. 
Samantha
(9,314 posts)"Switching to the chained CPI would reduce Social Security COLAs by about 0.3 of a percentage point each year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, saving the federal government more than $200 billion over the next 10 years. Most of the savings would come from lower Social Security benefits and lower retirement benefits for federal employees, whose increases also are tied to the CPI.
The Senior Citizens League calculates that such a change would reduce Social Security benefits by an estimated 7 percent over a 25-year retirement. For a senior who retires in 2011 and receives the average Social Security benefit -- about $1,100 per month -- this would reduce benefits over 25 years by $18,634. The cuts would be very small in the beginning but escalate as recipients age." (emphasis added)(see http://www.tscl.org/action/emergencycola.asp .)
Link to thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1436970
(written July 7, 2011 - so these statistics are from that time frame)
Sam
FogerRox
(13,211 posts)
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)
bhikkhu
(10,718 posts)chained cpi (or superlative cpi, or whatever they want to call it) is designed to save the system money over the long term not by decreasing the size of the payments, but by decreasing the size of the increases in payments.
It is designed to under-estimate inflation, and so provide a smaller cost of living adjustment.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)less than $1500 per month and the poverty guideline level used to determine eligibility for benefits from various programs is $11,490 per year for one person and $15,510 for 2 persons, a lot of seniors receiving below average benefits (and that is a good portion of them) will be eligible for supplementary benefits from the federal government.
These seniors will have to go through a lot of red tape and humiliation and heartbreak to get help, but they will be desperate enough do it. As time goes on, the numbers of seniors qualifying for these additional benefits will increase.
It is just ridiculous to change to the chained CPI. It won't really accomplish much at all but cost additional money to pay the employees who have to process applications for aid from programs other than Social Security.
The chained CPI is mostly about increasing waste and humiliation and reducing the efficiency and dignity that Social Security has brought us.
bhikkhu
(10,718 posts)...such that the actual money-in-pocket for those who relied on SS for their primary income would be unchanged. Or, rather, that it would increase at the same effective rate as before any chained CPI scheme.
I don't know how (or if) the mechanics of that work, but in theory it would make SS "means tested". Which isn't such a terrible idea in itself, but I can't think of a screwier or more complicated way to go about it.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)In health care insurance companies that fleece us when we are sick.
In chartered schools that take our taxpayer money and give less than value in return.
In companies that outsource our jobs and fire us.
Those "investments" cost us more than we could ever earn from them. I can't think of a bigger swindler of the American people than Wall Street -- unless it would be the military-industrial complex.
What incredible cheats.
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)Response to Demo_Chris (Original post)
RufusTFirefly This message was self-deleted by its author.
Shivering Jemmy
(900 posts)Lets see actual math proving this. Easier up make decisions with math.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)While all kinds of people are offering speculation, no one can provide any real numbers. The reason is this: the entire scheme is designed around the idea of eliminating OBJECTIVE values from the CPI.
In an ideal system, the government would say: "This is what it costs to live, this is the baseline. A person needs this much food and fuel, this much for housing, this much for medical, etc" And from this, any measurable change would result in an immediate matching change in benefits. When gas or hamburger or healthcare go up, so do benefits. That's the ideal, and that doesn't happen today. Today these changes to benefits lag at best, or are severely under accounted for at worst -- but at least there is some sort of objective (if flawed) and consistent standard.
Chained CPI aims to torpedo that. If items in the CPI basket can be swapped for lesser value items at will, and then called the same thing, then the only thing really that really matters is the creativity and compassion of the bureaucrat making the change. But the one thing we know for a solid fact is this:
The VALUE of the benefits received WILL GO DOWN every year, without fail. If today, for example, your benefits will purchase 100 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese, in ten years it will purchase 90 or 75 or 45 or.... or there's no way to know.
still_one
(92,204 posts)UBEEDelusional
(54 posts)Smart person explains it very simply
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017110287
KoKo
(84,711 posts)eomer
(3,845 posts)The chained cpi proposal is a cut in the cost-of-living adjustment that applies beginning at age 62. It does not cut in any way the initial PIA calculated at age 62 and the only cut it makes in benefits after that is a reduction in the increase due to cost-of-living.
So, no, chained cpi can never result in people currently age 20 or 30 having their benefits reduced to zero before they ever reach retirement and start receiving benefits. It does not affect at all the benefit calculation at age 62 and the benefit at age 65 to 67 when most people will retire will be only a percent or two less than under current law. At later ages is when the change will begin to kick in and be painful - at ages when people have few options to change their financial situation.
And, no, chained cpi can never result in the check of a person already retired going down. It will result in a smaller increase in the check from year to year, so the inflation-adjusted value may go down, but the dollar amount written on the check will not go down from year to year.
The change is awful enough in its accurate details. And it is a cut in social security benefits. But describing it inaccurately is both unnecessary and unhelpful.
eallen
(2,953 posts)
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)Let's say Obama gets his much coveted Chained CPI for his boys on Wall Street. The reduction in benefits is estimated to be .3% each year thereafter. When my five year old granddaughter retires in sixty years, she will see 18% less in benefits at the very beginning of her retirement. That .3% reduction adds up over time, and the starting point of retirement for each successive generation will see an even larger percentage of reductions.
There's nothing misleading about the OP. This is an insidious plan to destroy Social Security as we know it. Your attempt to make it seem as though the reduction in benefits begins after you retire, is pure deluxe bollocks. The reductions will begin the day you're born.
eomer
(3,845 posts)The cost-of-living adjustment is applied beginning at age 62, not before. So the beginning benefit one would receive if choosing to retire at age 62 would be unaffected by the proposed change.
If chained CPI were enacted then your granddaughter's benefit at age 62 would be the same as under current law. Starting from her future age 62, 57 years from now, her benefits will have cost-of-living adjustments applied for the first time. So it is not until she is 92 that her benefits will have had 30 years of inflation adjustment and thus would be reduced (compared to current law) by 30 years of the .3% lower adjustment. And the reduction in her benefit at age 92 would be the same as the reduction at age 92 for a person reaching 62 next year if inflation statistics turned out the same.
So the proposed change would have no worse effect on future generations than for people who are 62 now. Each person's cost-of-living clock doesn't start ticking until age 62.
In a way this makes the change even more outrageous. Of all people to shoulder the burden of our fake crisis, people of an advanced enough age (in the future) for the chained CPI change to make a difference would have been last on my list.
And to further clarify the effect of the proposed change, it is not people who are now of an advanced age who would be significantly affected, but rather those who live a significant number of post-62 years after the change.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Was talking about it as if the dollar figure on the check went down. In truth, it is more accurate to say that while the dollar figure printed on the check continues to rise with (but slower than) inflation, the VALUE or purchasing power goes down compared to what it is today.
I felt that this more accurate description complicates the issue, and it was better to talk about it as if the check got smaller.
The other key point, and this too is perhaps deserving of its own thread, is this:
Some seniors are likely consoling themselves with the thought that this, and the eventual privitization this WILL facilitate, won't impact them. They believe they will remain secure in their government benefits -- just as every proponent of privitization promises. In reality, once current recipients are on one program (the government program) and future beneficiaries on a privitized program, there will be an immediate competition between the two for cash. Younger people, who will NEVER benefit from the current program themselves, will then have absolutely no incentive to give a damn about what happens to seniors -- and a very good reason to want their privitized money reserved for themselves. End result: the recipients of government social security will be decimated, and those on the privitized plan will have no reason to care.
Some might say that the generation that decided to cash in by outsourcing their kids and grandkids jobs deserves no better, but that's a subject for another debate. Suffice it to say the generation who fucked the future probably might not find many allies among the people they fucked.
dajoki
(10,678 posts)
ProfessionalLeftist
(4,982 posts)Pete Peterson-style. Just ask Alan Simpson - he's one of Peterson's followers/proponents/whatever ... and that is in fact their intent - to dismantle Social Security by stealth. Obama apparently means to start that process - with his gleaming, friendly smile...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Portal:Fix_the_Debt
randome
(34,845 posts)They were more than inflation. I think even with chained CPI, the possibility exists that Congress would continue to be 'afraid' of letting seniors languish and would add onto whatever increase was mandated by chained CPI.
I'm not trying to exonerate Obama for what's happening, just pointing this out as a possibility.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Nixon administration increased the benefit 10% and the COLA was instituted. Since then, it's been the COLA and that's it. They threw a one time hundred bucks or so a few years ago as I recall. Never has any additional monthly been added to the COLA. The increases have always been related to inflation and legally tied to it since 1973.
pa28
(6,145 posts)I've paid into the system for over 20 years and have 25 years left to go. If our politicians are not willing to stand up for SS I'd rather cut my losses now and find a way to end the program entirely.
thesquanderer
(11,989 posts)I'm against chained CPI (for reasons explained well by the Reich video, among other places), but I think you overstate the case. With chained CPI, payments still increase compared to where they are now, but not by as much. So SS checks do not shrink at all, much less shrink to zero.
Faygo Kid
(21,478 posts)A president, and a Dem president at that, has for the first time proposed cuts to Social Security. Is there any doubt the GOP will condemn him for it, then take the ball and run with the idea to kill Social Security by "privatizing" it?
Dark day in U.S. history.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
we can do it
(12,186 posts)
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)back when Democrats like FDR defended it tooth and nail, and persuasively.
