Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Kenneth Thomas — New Social Security Crisis Set for 2016

The House Republicans, in their eagerness to find a way to cut Social Security benefits, on Tuesday passed a new rule preventing the reallocation of monies between the Social Security Trust Fund and the Social Security Disability program. 
No, don't let your eyes glaze over! This is a big deal. The disability portion of Social Security, with 11 million beneficiaries receiving an average $1146 a month in benefits, is expected to exhaust its separate trust fund in late 2016.…
Middle Class Political Economist
New Social Security Crisis Set for 2016
Kenneth Thomas | Professor and Research Fellow, Center for International Studies, University of Missouri at St. Louis

2 comments:

Ryan Harris said...

The thing is that when you remove this last connection people have to civilized society, their options are limited for survival. These are the payments that rich make to the people they have displaced so they can have cheap imports. For most there is no longer any place for them in society, the democrats want them to get a few degrees and magically become engineers, scientists, tech startup guys, or you know, the fall back position, run a hedge fund.

Dan Lynch said...

Republicans will claim that they were "protecting" SS by protecting the trust fund from disability claims.

Conservative voters take a dim view of disability, believing that many on disability could work if they wanted to.

In any event, the disabled are a relatively small group with no organized political clout, so I don't see this as hurting Republicans politically. Look at what is happening in Britain with the disabled losing benefits, yet there has been no major backlash at the voting booth.

*If* Democrats were serious about protecting SS they could mint the damned coin and prefund SS for the next 100 years or so. Methinks they want to cut SS, too, only they're not as honest about it as Republicans.