Carol Capuano
COM 156
November 12, 2011

In the Unites States we do not need to plan for retirement. Social Security will cover our needs when we are retired.

"The Social Security program is a pact between workers and their employers that they will contribute to a common fund to ensure that those who are no longer part of the work force will have a basic income on which to live. It represents our commitment as a society to the belief that workers should not live in dread that a disability, death, or old age could leave them or their families destitute." - December 20, 1977 President Jimmy Carter. "This law represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means completed--a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions, to act as a protection to future administrations of the Government against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy--a law to flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation--in other words, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness." -August 14, 1935 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The statement that Social Security will cover needs when one is retired is not only a myth but an ancient and outdated philosophy. As one looks into the Social Security today, one must look at the entire pie. Social Security is a tax paid by working men and women. A percentage of these taxes are suppose to be put away for future use while drawing interest in a high yield savings. However, with the many bailouts, lawsuits, and unsupervised government spending, Social Security has become the (get out of trouble) savings and loan. The funds that were saved has yet been used to bail out banks, help other agencies within the government stay in the black and pay millions to immigrants who have worked in this country. However their money or should one say their Social Security funds go to their country. Social Security is intended to take care of those who have loss worked or can’t work to insure that people are not impoverished. The benefits of the social security are being used to take care of other government agencies. Now the social security is the go-to- agency when other agencies are without funds, and those funds are yet to be paid back. With funds constantly leaving and nothing going in except the funds of $1 million of Americans, it leaves the SS administration at a weak and non- existent state.

President Theodore Rossevelt said that “Social Security is a law that will take care of the human needs and provide for the economic structure.” The economic structure is diminished, thereby leaving the human needs of the people in an insecure state. Social Security today is not the Social Security of the early 1930’s. We cannot wait on the government to “do the right thing” and take care of each persons’ individual needs, if we do we are as blind as the government. We as younger people should not depend on it; always have a backup plan. We are not guaranteed to get the same exact amounts that some of our grandparents receive now. Social Security is working towards long term funding every day, but they also considering raising the age to receive Social Security to 69, because they feel that we younger people will longer verses someone that was born in 1939. The younger you are and the higher your income, more likely your Social Security benefits will be lower because they would like to focus on the people that really has a need for it. With the rising prices and static incomes hitting the older Americans now and they are running out of money now and I am no where near 69, just imagine how it will be later on. Twenty –three percent of people 65 and older live in households that depend on Social Security for more than 90% or more of their income according to a 2010 AARP report. About 20%more receive at least half of their family income from Social Security. In 2008, some 34 million retired American workers received an average of $1,079 a month. Married couples received $1,761 a month while widows and widowers received an average of $1,008. If you look at the monthly incomes two years ago, and look at how the cost of living, groceries and gas has went up in the past two years. The interactions between changes to Social Security or SSI and low-income programs affect not just beneficiaries, but the total cost of an option as well. For example, increased SSI enrollment could lead to higher expenses not just for SSI, but also for
Medicaid, the food stamp program, and LIHEAP. This is because a greater number of SSI recipients would mean a greater number of people who are categorically eligible for these programs, increasing their cost. Similarly, an increase in Social
Security benefits could lead to higher expenses for Social Security, but lower expenses for SSI, Medicaid, the food stamp program, and LIHEAP. This is because higher Social Security benefits would increase the total income of some people enough so that they would lose eligibility for SSI and other means-tested programs. If one wanted to increase Social Security benefits while minimizing effects on SSI eligibility and benefit levels, one option would be raising SSI’s $20 unearned income exclusion, which has not changed since 1981.

This change would allow a greater proportion of Social Security benefits at the full retirement age (at which unreduced benefits are paid). Most people, especially people with low incomes, claim benefits before their full retirement ages and are thus subject to a permanent reduction in monthly benefits.

For example, claiming benefits at Social Security’s earliest eligibility age (62) permanently reduces workers’ PIAs by 30% if they were born in 1960 or later .The mean change in Social Security benefits among all beneficiaries is projected to be about 2% under this option.
Eligibility for Social Security would not change under the option, but the additional income received would disqualify some individuals from SSI. As a result, about 12% of individuals (307,000) who received SSI benefits under the baseline are projected to lose their entire SSI benefit. Among beneficiaries projected to retain eligibility for
SSI, about 20% would receive lower benefits. This effect on SSI benefits dilutes the option’s poverty reduction effect.

So with all of these points in mind, one would be crazy to believe that you could work for years and build a nest and then live in the nest until death. The Social Security nest is far from being secure. It is now being held together by political red tape, loan slips and out source paperwork. Working for a living is a good thing and by working one builds character. But, today the character you built from the ground up will be needed to help build a better nest. Taking on an extra job, going back to school or starting your own business will be a great help as one saves for retirement. Retirement was at age sixty five, but longevity and the lack of Social Security along with the rising cost of living has forced people to work longer even sometimes until death. The average Social Security check is about eight hundred dollars per month. With the cost of living, food, medication and taxes going up each year, one cannot merely depend upon a benefit that is hanging on by a spiders web. Some of our elected officials as well as people of power are more interested in their own pockets rather than the common needs if hard working tax papers. With us taking care of illegal immigrants and them being able to obtain work permits and social security numbers, will thereby give them access to getting social security benefits. We are in some cases taking care of other countries. If we are taking care of other countries, who is taking care of us?

References: www.truthorfiction.com www.battleforsocialsecurity.com www.SocialSecurity.com www.aging.senate.gov