Over $1 Trillion In Social Security Benefits Paid In FY 2017
Social Security benefits paid more than one trillion dollars in fiscal year 2017. This is the first time that benefits in a fiscal year topped the $1 trillion mark. The 2017 fiscal year ended on September 30, 2017.
Please remember, these are earned benefits. Not needs based benefits. Most of those receiving are because they paid into the program for decades and now reached eligibility status, even as congress moved the retirement age goalposts to reduce benefits paid.
How could this happen? Its like a lot of people all reached retirement age at the same time? Shouldn't someone have seen this coming and adjusted the payroll tax to account for this?
@ 9:17 - In the event that your comment is not intended as humor, to have adjusted the payroll tax or tax base would have been decried as a tax increase. The horror!
Unfortunately the articles I have read, portray this as SPENDING. In other words the SSA has SPENT over a trillion dollars. Why can't they distinguish between OPERATION COSTS and the TRUST FUND?
PS: Can't you make it easier to prove I am not a robot? I am disabled and its hard to sit there through multiple screens of street signs and cars?
Just think how much lower that would be if we eliminated ALL of the fraud, Waste and Abuse that is in the system. Yes, I am joking. While we need to fight fraud, it is obviously is a very small percentage of the payout.
Folks, the population is aging at the fastest rate in history. More than 10,000 people retire everyday. Women are in the workforce like never before. The fact that SS benefits have exceeded $1 trillion shouldn't be surprising. Have a nice day.
This is America's retirement program, and there are a lot of older Americans. In light of reports that the Rs want to tinker with 401k plans, it is more important than ever to protect Social Security from the I've-got-mine crowd.
Only true initially....most people will be paid a third more in benefits then what they paid in, and many it is six times more. Then there is Medicare!
@ Arizona Jim, that's how insurance works. The people who wind up making claims get more than they paid in. Think about car, homeowner's, or health insurance--most people pay in for years and don't get much if anything back....but the one person whose house catches on fire with the car in the garage and suffers burns trying to get out uses a LOT of insurance.
The people who don't make claims (in this context, the people who die at an early age, never having gotten disability benefits and without eligible survivors) lose out.
While you're paying in, you don't know if you're a "winner" or a "loser." The insurance is there to smooth out the risks. It's because it's not practical for each person to save what they need for a catastrophe. It's cheaper and easier to pool the risks and put in your portion of what society needs to save for all of its catastrophes.
It WAS THE OLDER FOLKS who put part of the earnings into the SSA. Many have a distaste for the "baby boomers' but it was the baby boomers who made it the largest benefit program in the history of the SSA. Even at that, not all baby boomers can collect all of those benefits if they worked partly in their lifetime for the federal govt. Their benefits are cut in half due to an offset just as are those who got injured on the job. Some get more than one offset depending on the employers stated amount for worker compensation benefits but clearly don't. Too, had employers paid the right amount of stated worker compensation benefits, The SSDI would have not been depleted as the GOP has bantered around. Too making the injured pay for medical, Medicare rather than the employer paying for the medical coverage of worker compensation benefits, the injured employee wouldn't have to pay the regular Medicare amount of their offset SSDI or out of their SSI amount that a retiree has to pay. Had employers decided not to injure the many (age 40 and up) baby boomers starting in the latter 80's, letting them work until retirement age, (The SSA, SSDI, SSI & Medicare) and NOT giving some of those earned benefits to foreigners, the SSA pot would be bigger too. Gerry rigging SSI and having BLAMED the injured all SO THEY HAVE to pay Medicare again out of their pity SSI is yet another nasty game implemented and played by Congress. It is the congress that gerry rigs it all and uses its attorney legalese perversions to blame the very same disabled or retirees, who have no control over the SSA, SSDI, SSI or MEDICARE earned benefits.
Please remember, these are earned benefits. Not needs based benefits. Most of those receiving are because they paid into the program for decades and now reached eligibility status, even as congress moved the retirement age goalposts to reduce benefits paid.
ReplyDeleteHow could this happen? Its like a lot of people all reached retirement age at the same time? Shouldn't someone have seen this coming and adjusted the payroll tax to account for this?
ReplyDelete@ 9:17 - In the event that your comment is not intended as humor, to have adjusted the payroll tax or tax base would have been decried as a tax increase. The horror!
ReplyDeleteOld but appropriate
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thedailybeast.com/what-about-increased-social-security-benefits
Social Security ranks 19th in the world in the percentage of pre-retirement income replaced.
Unfortunately the articles I have read, portray this as SPENDING. In other words the SSA has SPENT over a trillion dollars. Why can't they distinguish between OPERATION COSTS and the TRUST FUND?
ReplyDeletePS: Can't you make it easier to prove I am not a robot? I am disabled and its hard to sit there through multiple screens of street signs and cars?
Just think how much lower that would be if we eliminated ALL of the fraud, Waste and Abuse that is in the system. Yes, I am joking. While we need to fight fraud, it is obviously is a very small percentage of the payout.
ReplyDeleteFolks, the population is aging at the fastest rate in history. More than 10,000 people retire everyday. Women are in the workforce like never before. The fact that SS benefits have exceeded $1 trillion shouldn't be surprising. Have a nice day.
ReplyDelete"PS: Can't you make it easier to prove I am not a robot? I am disabled and its hard to sit there through multiple screens of street signs and cars?"
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to deal with sometimes and I'm an attorney.
So, yeah, Charles needs to reduce the security settings a bit.
Take it up with Blogger. I have no control over this.
ReplyDeleteThis is America's retirement program, and there are a lot of older Americans. In light of reports that the Rs want to tinker with 401k plans, it is more important than ever to protect Social Security from the I've-got-mine crowd.
ReplyDeleteLike Boomers?
ReplyDelete"Please remember, these are earned benefits."
ReplyDeleteOnly true initially....most people will be paid a third more in benefits then what they paid in, and many it is six times more. Then there is Medicare!
@ Arizona Jim, that's how insurance works. The people who wind up making claims get more than they paid in. Think about car, homeowner's, or health insurance--most people pay in for years and don't get much if anything back....but the one person whose house catches on fire with the car in the garage and suffers burns trying to get out uses a LOT of insurance.
ReplyDeleteThe people who don't make claims (in this context, the people who die at an early age, never having gotten disability benefits and without eligible survivors) lose out.
While you're paying in, you don't know if you're a "winner" or a "loser." The insurance is there to smooth out the risks. It's because it's not practical for each person to save what they need for a catastrophe. It's cheaper and easier to pool the risks and put in your portion of what society needs to save for all of its catastrophes.
It WAS THE OLDER FOLKS who put part of the earnings into the SSA. Many have a distaste for the "baby boomers' but it was the baby boomers who made it the largest benefit program in the history of the SSA. Even at that, not all baby boomers can collect all of those benefits if they worked partly in their lifetime for the federal govt. Their benefits are cut in half due to an offset just as are those who got injured on the job. Some get more than one offset depending on the employers stated amount for worker compensation benefits but clearly don't. Too, had employers paid the right amount of stated worker compensation benefits, The SSDI would have not been depleted as the GOP has bantered around. Too making the injured pay for medical, Medicare rather than the employer paying for the medical coverage of worker compensation benefits, the injured employee wouldn't have to pay the regular Medicare amount of their offset SSDI or out of their SSI amount that a retiree has to pay. Had employers decided not to injure the many (age 40 and up) baby boomers starting in the latter 80's, letting them work until retirement age, (The SSA, SSDI, SSI & Medicare) and NOT giving some of those earned benefits to foreigners, the SSA pot would be bigger too. Gerry rigging SSI and having BLAMED the injured all SO THEY HAVE to pay Medicare again out of their pity SSI is yet another nasty game implemented and played by Congress. It is the congress that gerry rigs it all and uses its attorney legalese perversions to blame the very same disabled or retirees, who have no control over the SSA, SSDI, SSI or MEDICARE earned benefits.
ReplyDelete