Alicia H. Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, has penned a piece for Marketwatch on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Social Security. She's not definite. It's not possible to be at this point. She suggests that even though there will be no near term effect upon Social Security's ability to pay benefits, the economic effects of Covid-19 may hasten the day that something will have to be done about the Social Security trust funds. She also believes it is possible there will be no cost of living adjustment in Social Security benefits this year because the economic crisis has stopped inflation. In the long run, Munnell thinks that there may be some effect upon future Social Security payments to those whose earnings are reduced or absent now due to Covid-19. Low income workers may be the ones most affected.
3 comments:
Of course it will be used as an excuse for further austerity by our depraved ruling class.
Inflation may be halting, but that's not really what COLAs are based on, and the price of groceries and certain other household necessities has been skyrocketing in many areas (though the impact of this may be offset to some degree by lower fuel prices).
As for the long-term health of Social Security's trust funds, I think it's too early to say much of anything. On one hand, the economy is clearly in shambles, and certain government officials seem bent on making it worse by cutting off the increased unemployment benefits, just to spite a tiny handful of outliers from receiving more in unemployment than they would at their old jobs that don't exist. On the other hand, favorable attitudes toward social programs like SSA's, and willingness to tax the wealthy to preserve and expand them, seem to increase as you look down toward younger brackets of the voting population (unsurprisingly, given how many times 20-40 year olds have been thoroughly screwed financially in recent decades).
Tax the rich at a rate that is proportional to the publicly-funded benefits they receive, and SSA has no solvency problem whatsoever - indeed, it's flush with funds to cover COL increases.
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