Republican Plan to Raise Social Security Retirement Age

[dqhall]

Since the Republicans have a House Majority, they may try to raise the full retirement age from 67 to 70. In the past they raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 in small increments. Plans to delay Medicare eligibility to later than 65 have also been discussed. Is this going to affect your retirement plans? Most people retired before the age of 65.

Most states expanded Medicare after the Affordable Care Act was passed, except eleven Republican states have not expanded Medicaid. Many rural hospitals have closed in the past decade.

House GOP Budget Framework Sets 70 as Full Social Security Claiming Age | ThinkAdvisor

 

[Paulos23]

That is great for us office workers, but sucks for those who have jobs with more phsical labor.

Of course, I wasn't planning on retiring until 70 anyway.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Since the Republicans have a House Majority, they may try to raise the full retirement age from 67 to 70. In the past they raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 in small increments. Plans to delay Medicare eligibility to later than 65 have also been discussed. Is this going to affect your retirement plans? Most people retired before the age of 65.

Most states expanded Medicare after the Affordable Care Act was passed, except eleven Republican states have not expanded Medicaid. Many rural hospitals have closed in the past decade.

House GOP Budget Framework Sets 70 as Full Social Security Claiming Age | ThinkAdvisor

I have 25 years to go before I’ll be able to collect but then again by that time I’m sure it’ll be raised to 90 or 100. What this is going to eventually end up doing is creating more elderly homeless people.

 

[wing2000]

It's a benefit cut.

I've been paying into this system for 42 years (with 12 more years to go) and am opposed to any reduction in benefits. Raise the the Social Security taxes if that's what is needed.

As an aside, US life expectancy has dropped recently....while that should be temporary, one never knows with all the vaccine misinformation circulating.

Life expectancy at birth in the United States declined nearly a year from 2020 to 2021, according to new provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That decline – 77.0 to 76.1 years – took U.S. life expectancy at birth to its lowest level since 1996. The 0.9 year drop in life expectancy in 2021, along with a 1.8 year drop in 2020, was the biggest two-year decline in life expectancy since 1921-1923.

Life Expectancy in the U.S. Dropped for the Second Year in a Row in 2021

National Center for Health Statistics

www.cdc.gov

 

[dqhall]

That is great for us office workers, but sucks for those who have jobs with more phsical labor.

Of course, I wasn't planning on retiring until 70 anyway.

Even office workers may have health problems as they age. My dad retired when he was 70 to care for mom who was also 70. Mom had dementia. He used home care workers to help. He had a stroke at 83 and went to assisted living. Mom died in a nearby nursing home two years later.

 

[Aussie Pete]

It's a benefit cut.

I've been paying into this system for 42 years (with 12 more years to go) and am opposed to any reduction in benefits. Raise the the Social Security taxes if that's what is needed.

As an aside, US life expectancy has dropped recently....while that should be temporary, one never knows with all the vaccine misinformation circulating.

Life expectancy at birth in the United States declined nearly a year from 2020 to 2021, according to new provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That decline – 77.0 to 76.1 years – took U.S. life expectancy at birth to its lowest level since 1996. The 0.9 year drop in life expectancy in 2021, along with a 1.8 year drop in 2020, was the biggest two-year decline in life expectancy since 1921-1923.

Life Expectancy in the U.S. Dropped for the Second Year in a Row in 2021

National Center for Health Statistics

www.cdc.gov

It has nothing to do with vaccines. The life expectancy decrease is due to COVID deaths, suicide, obesity and drug overdose. As the Bible says, men will faint from fear and anxiety over what is to come over the earth. (Luke 21:26) Worry and stress are health hazards and even killers.

 

[ozso]

That is great for us office workers, but sucks for those who have jobs with more phsical labor.

Of course, I wasn't planning on retiring until 70 anyway.

Yeah at 60 I don't see myself wanting to retire within the next ten years.

 

[Nithavela]

It has nothing to do with vaccines.

The implication was that life expectancy would drop because of less vaccines being taken due to misinformation.

 

[wing2000]

It has nothing to do with vaccines. The life expectancy decrease is due to COVID deaths, suicide, obesity and drug overdose. As the Bible says, men will faint from fear and anxiety over what is to come over the earth. (Luke 21:26) Worry and stress are health hazards and even killers.

Sure, refusing to take life saving vaccines is one of many contributors to the lower life expectancy over the last couple of years...but it is a contributor. My main point was life expectancy is dropping...and certain Republicans still want to raise the retirement age, thus reducing benefits to Americans who have paid into the system. Once more, some of the most affected groups of lower life expectancy are the same Americans who do perform the manual labor of the country. It's patently unfair.

 

[wing2000]

What is the retirement age in Australia?

 

[dqhall]

The implication was that life expectancy would drop because of less vaccines being taken due to misinformation.

They made 65 years old the Social Security retirement age in 1935.
In 1935 the average life expectancy was 6O.

In 2021 the life expectancy of women in the U.S. was 79.
The life expectancy of men was 73. COVID caused a drop in life expectancy that year. Asian Americans lived to 83, they are the thinnest racial group.
Life Expectancy in the U.S. Dropped for the Second Year in a Row in 2021

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Social Security and Medicare are the two cases of government spending that actually make sense (as opposed countless other forms of government spending that are utterly wasteful and useless)

Yet, they're the two that almost always fall victim to proposed cuts and rollbacks.


This is what happens when too many people on the conservative side start looking to absolutist conservatives the likes of Charlie Kirk as a "thought leader" instead of more common sense balanced conservatives like George Will.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

As an aside, US life expectancy has dropped recently....while that should be temporary, one never knows with all the vaccine misinformation circulating.

It has nothing to do with vaccines.

I think medical misinformation does actually drive a lot of the poor health outcomes we see. While vaccine misinformation is just a subset of that, it's part of a larger problem.

Covid and vaccines (rightfully) got more attention due to the fact that it's a condition you can spread to someone else (IE: there's externalities at play with that one)

There are several others forms of medical misinformation (that don't involve anything contagious) but that are still shortening lifespans that don't have as easily recognizable externalities, but that still result in tens of thousands needing disproportionate healthcare and ending up in an early grave...and have been happening for decades without anyone batting an eye.

A significant number of people thinking "whatever the medical science consensus is, I need to do the opposite" isn't a favorable model...and we still have a lot of people embracing one or more of those things.


Some examples:
The Atkins Diet
"The Carnivore Diet"
Chiropractic
Homeopathy
Anti-GMO hysteria
Thinking Himalayan salt somehow magically makes oversalting one's food "healthy"
Denial of the link between dietary cholesterol and atherosclerosis

As well as a litany of "Natural Remedies" people try to use in cases where man-made pharmaceutical remedies are needed, which allows negative preventable outcomes to occur when they could've been prevented.

Collectively, adherence to those have put more people in early graves (and burdened healthcare systems more) than Covid...but since it happens more slowly over a longer period of time (and the negative results don't involve spreading the condition to someone else), they've largely gone unnoticed.

 

[Aussie Pete]

What is the retirement age in Australia?

Currently 66-1/2, from 1st July 67. It will rise eventually to 70. When I first came to Australia, it was not unusual for people to enter the workforce at 15 or 16 years old. Most people now go to university. So they are at best part time workers, maybe until their mid 20's. So a shorter working life means less tax collected.

I believe it's unjust, especially to manual workers. I'm 71 and I retired at 65, before the age limit was raised. I'm reasonably fit, but my days of climbing ladders, pushing wheelbarrows full of rocks, cleaning out gutters and such are over. My late electrician friend retired in his 50's. Getting under houses and in roof spaces was too much.

When I joined the workforce, aged 15, most companies trained people on the job. Now few offer anything except unpaid internships. And many young people these days have little interest in work. They seem happy enough to eat though.

 

[Aussie Pete]

The implication was that life expectancy would drop because of less vaccines being taken due to misinformation.

Thank you for clarifying. My misunderstanding.

 

[dqhall]

Currently 66-1/2, from 1st July 67. It will rise eventually to 70. When I first came to Australia, it was not unusual for people to enter the workforce at 15 or 16 years old. Most people now go to university. So they are at best part time workers, maybe until their mid 20's. So a shorter working life means less tax collected.

I believe it's unjust, especially to manual workers. I'm 71 and I retired at 65, before the age limit was raised. I'm reasonably fit, but my days of climbing ladders, pushing wheelbarrows full of rocks, cleaning out gutters and such are over. My late electrician friend retired in his 50's. Getting under houses and in roof spaces was too much.

When I joined the workforce, aged 15, most companies trained people on the job. Now few offer anything except unpaid internships. And many young people these days have little interest in work. They seem happy enough to eat though.

Richard Branson dropped out of school when he was 15. He was worth over $3 billion recently. People staying in school too long is a mistake. Now they want student loan forgiveness. They have little hope. The minimum wage was $2.10 when I was 15 and had a summer job. Now I am 63. Republican calls to cut Social Security and Medicare scare me. Some lawmakers want to gradually increase the retirement age to 70. I already can not work due to an accident. I purchased more expensive health insurance. Some doctors do not accept patients who have cheap high deductible health insurance plans. I did not need doctors as frequently when I was young. The stock market dropped and now the value of some vacant land I own is going down. The taxes on it rose. I have uninsured hurricane losses. I am living above the poverty level, but am seeing inflation erode my retirement savings. I bought a new small SUV last year. I bought stocks, dividend stocks, bonds and CD’s.

The man bought a house built upon a concrete slab. Hurricane Ian came, his house flooded, but was still there after the storm surge. It filled with toxic mold. People in Fort Myers have abandoned moldy homes, same as after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

 

[rjs330]

I'd actually be in more favor of raising the rates than the age. I've haven't studied the social security vs life expectancy as it appears some have so I will just accept what is said.

Leaving it at 67 seems like the thing to do as it was created at a time when you were expected to live 5 years past the retirement age.

If the SSN isn't covering the retirements then raising the rates should be the answer. They do that with other retirement systems.

Further, I would create SSN fund which is not accessible except for SSN. Having it in the general budget is most likely one of the reasons it's struggling now. If it's not designated there is no reason to not take the money for other things.

America has a huge spending problem combined with a tax problem. And Congress doesn't have the guts to do what needs to be done.

 

[dqhall]

I'd actually be in more favor of raising the rates than the age. I've haven't studied the social security vs life expectancy as it appears some have so I will just accept what is said.

Leaving it at 67 seems like the thing to do as it was created at a time when you were expected to live 5 years past the retirement age.

If the SSN isn't covering the retirements then raising the rates should be the answer. They do that with other retirement systems.

Further, I would create SSN fund which is not accessible except for SSN. Having it in the general budget is most likely one of the reasons it's struggling now. If it's not designated there is no reason to not take the money for other things.

America has a huge spending problem combined with a tax problem. And Congress doesn't have the guts to do what needs to be done.

They change the monthly Social Security payout with the changing CPI number. The CPI - Consumer Price Index hid some inflation by asking homeowners to estimate what their homes would rent for. The homeowner does not know unless they rent out a home in the area. The price of a new home is rising faster than the Consumer Price Index. They also hid some new car inflation by acknowledging a new Ford has adaptive cruise control, lane centering, automatic braking, a back up camera, a GPS navigation system, computer screen, and better rust protection than a 1968 VW Bug had, thus the higher cost of a new car is not all inflation. You are getting more amenities for your money.

The widow was perplexed. Her monthly Social Security payment no longer covered her monthly rent. She wept.

The retired man with a Medicare plan was upset when he heard the receptionist ask for a $40 copayment for his lab testing. He complained, $40? He stood motionless in disbelief.

 

[Say it aint so]

Isn't the US life expectancy going backwards? You got to love the GOP.

 

[jayem]

I suspect this is—to use an old ad business phrase— “let’s run it up the flagpole and see who salutes” idea. Realistically, the social safety net is very unlikely to change in the next 2 years. The House can’t enact legislation by itself. The Senate also has to pass it, and the President has to sign it. Both are In Democratic hands. At least until Jan. 20, 2025.