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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   29326 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Because the $250,000 isn't indexed to inflation it's just a slow transition into removing the cap on taxed income while providing benefits only on the social security max income.

Yeah, the title of that section was "Raise the Payroll Cap", this wasn't hidden. Unpleasant decisions will half to be made either way, a decade and a half transition from the payroll cap that fundraises a trillion in the first decade off the top 5% of earners is one of the more reasonable ones I've seen.

It's high time for benefit shortfalls to match funding shortfalls.

Should we cut benefits by over almost a quarter? That's what we're on track to do currently.

Should we cut benefits by over almost a quarter? That's what we're on track to do currently.

Yes! Or more when that's necessary. I'd much prefer very low incomes were supplemented with on-budget, means tested assistance.

In practice, what does this look like? I honestly haven’t looked too much into the impact of cutting benefits (partially cause I consider it somewhat inevitable), but what are we thinking the consequences would be?

Right now our replacement rate is about 75%, cutting benefits by our projected shortfall would bring it to about 55-60%, which seems like a pretty massive drop in living standards for the quarter of Americans receiving SS.

Means testing seems maybe unnecessary given that we already have all the income data and do use it to factor in some progressivity to the payouts. We could just change the skew to slant even more towards lower income earners and away from the better off.

I would prefer if support were separated from social security. So I'd rather see something like the EITC for seniors whose AGI is below the federal poverty line get topped up to the poverty line separately.

My ideal policy would be a defined benefit national savings program something akin to superannuation with explicit government support for anyone who has AGI from all sources below the federal poverty line. So my proposed changes are an attempt to shift to something that could eventually become that.

I prefer this as it makes support explicit and easily measurable for future decision makers, the savings in the program goes to heirs if one dies before receiving some or all of it so it's fairer to people who die earlier, and having some of the money invested in equities and internationally buffers some of the monetary effects of boom generations on asset prices.

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