Not to worry. As we all know by now the SS benefits exceed revenues, but the difference is made up with income taxes/borrowing/printing. Or more precisely, additional deficits.

More workers and remove the cap problem solved but then again there isn’t a problem except the liars running around with thier hair on Fire saying that the sky is falling.

Better yet, we could further restrict legal immigration.

Illegal immigrants pay social security payroll taxes but are not eligible for benefits.

More EARNED income from productive Citizens and less UNEARNED income from flim flam tax avoiders who call themselves patriots.

Aren’t you buying into the Myth of the Dire Straits of Social Security??

There are a slew of SS dire warning stories in the MSM right now. They will continue for the austerity future. Remember we have a distribution problem not a resource problem. There is more money in America than anywhere else by far but it is being held in trust for Mitt’s and O’s children and the rest of the .01%ers.

Little Timmeh believes in the same myth.

This MATH is continuing to confuse me. If we’ve got too many people drawing benefits for the number of people paying in, dammit, we need more people at the bottom of the pyramid. We don’t need to build a fence on the border, we need to build a moving sidewalk.

No, Jon correctly states “Social Security trust fund is projected to run out of money in roughly 25 years, even though continuing payroll taxes would still be able to fund a high level of Social Security payments given current assumptions,” which is what your linked article confirms.

Agree, especially for illegal immigrants. They pay payroll taxes, but are not eligible for benefits. Win – win.

THis doesn’t sound like “rocket science” to me. People need to pay in more, work longer, retire later, and die quicker……….

Ohhhh, BOY HOWDY! That plan is gonna need some work.

Glad to have you around. That solves my dilemma in #11.

If we spent 57% of our budget fixing roads and building trains and wind farms and solar farms and paying higher wages to Amurcan workers SS would be very solvent and so would medicare. Shadowstatistics.com shows our real unemployment rate at 22.5%; add to that the underemployment figure and this is how we kill the middle class. Instead 57% goes to MIC which is obviously not a large employer for the amount of money they get; if MIC was a large employer the current stats would be much different.

So, what you’re saying is “What we have here is failure to communicate.”

No they (PTB) have communicated very clearly and we are headed to the same job Luke had.

First, this poll is crazy skewered. Where are Mexico and the Central American countries?

Second, we don’t need any more illegal immigration because we already have a huge unemployment problem. Our problem isn’t a shortage of workers, it’s a shortage of jobs for the workers we have. Why do we have these problems:

a) 5,000 manufacturing jobs a month going overseas for the past ten years.

b) Way too many H1b visas for skilled workers from other countries who will work at tech firms and so forth but not bitch about wages or working conditions out of fear of having their job (and therefore their visa) cancelled.

Whole article is bullshit except for the premise, more workers working = more SS and Medicare revenues.

The most important thing we can do is to really go for full employment. I mean full employment, zero unemployed. But I saw today that already some are thinking that 8% is full employment bc inflation is 2.3% in recent report. So we lose all the potential taxes and added GDP from full employment and SSMM remains underfunded.

But here’s the thing about that. We don’t need a fund to pay SS. You just pay for it as it becomes due the same way you pay for the defense budget. Greenspan sold us that particular line of bs. We don’t need no fund, no badges, no bs. Or maybe we should fund the defense budget and if there is no money in the fund, no spending for defense.

This whole meme about SSMM is going broke is a lie. You only believe it bc you think we must have a fund to pay it. You don’t. Never did, never will. SSMM will be paid as long as we, the people, say so. No other reason. The money comes out of thin air, literally. Or maybe electronic keystrokes, always did, always will.

I hardly think that a massive influx of immigrants is going to solve any problems. In fact, it would massively overload the existing infrastructure.

Oh, we don’t need to take any special actions on immigration either. If we choose to we can, but SS doesn’t require it. Same thing for,raising the age or the limits for taxes. There is no crucial reason though to do anything at all. And once you say 25years, that should be your sign. BS coming down. The bad thing here is someone behind that curtain is driving us to take irrational actions of one sort or another. Just. Say No.

The most important thing to remember about Social Security is that the Federal government has spent $2.3 Trillion dollars of our trust fund and they don’t want to have to pay it back!

I don’t get it. Did a troll write this?

Speaking of unemployment, how many private for profit companies are building roads? Not much profit for selling roads. The government could start up a corporation to do infrastructure things. And they could take over all the maintenance of tham and eliminate all tolls and they could stop the process of selling the roads to the plutocrats. Full employment is in reach.

There are literally hundreds of variables that can change and would affect the money taken into the trust fund. Wages for the bottom most likely can and will increase(Obama actually promised it last cycle and prior to being pilloried by right wing groups Romney supported a raise in minimum wage and indexing for inflation.) Hopefully we will see an improvement in our own employment and underemployment numbers which would also improve the outlook. People can and are getting educated and immigrating OUT of the United States as well as immigrating into. There can be a decrease or an increase in mortality or birth rates due to health care improvements or more likely the decrease in access to quality care.

People need to remember that when they create these formulas they plug in numbers that can change significantly over long periods of time. We saw this problem with the methodology for poverty levels. The people who created the formula then never in a million years figured food would become a smaller percentage of the household budget than housing. Just that change was enough that we saw a government shift and calls to reconfigure poverty formulas.

All you’ve suggested is that we consider (admit?) SSMM is welfare.

I don’t like going down that route.

I’m not averse to them printing to keep elderly Americans from poverty. Frankly it makes more sense then printing to keep a bunch of fat cat CEOs collecting six figure bonuses as was done not that long ago.

They might not want to pay it back, but the 25 year depletion of the SS Trust Fund DOES take into account the Fed government paying it back.

Bull shit! We, the people, have agreed that the elderly should not live in poverty. Period,no welfare.if you are above taking the money then don’t take it. I will take it as my right.

All money is “printed”. It comes from nowhere whenever the government needs it. They don’t need no taxes, they don’t need no printing presses. They make it out of thin air usually with electronic keystrokes. We have a fifteen trillion dollar deficit and we are all still alive. So someone has been making money behind our backs?

I didn’t read that at all. It looks like bluedot is saying that a government that has the means to print its own currency really has no reason to suggest that it can’t meet the needs of its seniors. It’s a big lie. There is a difference between can’t and won’t.

I tend to agree. We can spend trillions that we don’t have to save the banking sector(we sold securities and the argument there was the government does not run out of money as long as people have faith that the government would pay its bills) or trillions on unneeded wars(and yes Iraq was deferred or put on a credit card) but somehow or another when it comes to keeping our promises to the elderly it is completely insane to suggest that if need be the government could print money if need be?

Yep. It will take a while though to convince people that we are not insane. Hopefully, some smart MMT economists can lend a hand.

The problem with that is that printing does have consequences. It decreases the value of the dollar. We’ve seen inflation on our imports since the printing presses have started.

Although I will say that I am like you and would gladly pay a little more at the counters to keep a senior from eating cat food or becoming homeless. It makes far more sense than firing up the printing presses to save Jamie Dimon from having to live like most Americans.

With the upcoming release of the 2012 Social Security Trustees report there will probably be a lot of scary and unfounded headlines about SS likely to go bankrupt in the near future. Don’t believe that crap. Last year’s report projected that at the end of 2011, SS would have an accumulated surplus of around $2.7 TRILLION, which it now has and this year’s report will more than likely show the surplus to be even higher at the end of 2012. So, why the scary BS coming from those who want us to believe that SS is foundering? They want to get their grubby meathooks on SS’s surplus the same way Jimmy Hoffa used to “borrow” from the Teamster’s Retirement Fund as if it was his own private piggy bank.

Imports will tend to go up in price for several reasons, not least of which is the foreign country increases the price, something we may have little control over. It is not the deficit or printing as you say. At some point a deficit or printing as you say, will lead to inflation. But that will only happen when all our resources are employed. With over twenty million unemployed we are not even close.

Also, there is a little problem with energy. The oil producing nations are monopolists. So they can increase prices and there is not much we can do a out it. There is also a potential problem with food prices if we suffer global problems as we did a few years ago. You can call that inflation if you like but deficits or no may not help, except that monopoliists and speculators will increase prices as our economy improves. Those sort of price increase, that are outside our control,are not the usual inflation.

That is one reason to do away with the SS fund: prevent privatizing the fund and letting Wall Street get their hands on it and then have to get bailed out, which will happen.

Further evidence MIC not a good employer for middle class…
Striking Lockheed Martin workers picket in Texas
From Associated Press
April 23, 2012 3:32 PM EDT

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Unhappy with proposed changes to health care benefits and pension plans, dozens of Lockheed Martin workers started picketing Monday at a North Texas plant where F-35 stealth fighter jets are made, as well as outside flight test centers in two other states.

The strike by Fort Worth-based Machinists Local 776 began after the 3,600 union members voted overwhelmingly Sunday to reject the aerospace company’s latest contract offer. Union members oppose the company’s proposed changes to the health care and pension plans — including higher deductibles and co-payments — and eliminating pension for newly hired workers, said union spokesman Bob Wood.

If you work hard for this Company for 35 years you don’t deserve a pension but if you are the CEO for four years you get a golden parachute worth millions of dollars.

All the fear mongering is designed to end social security and medicare by privatizing them. AHIP will take over medicare and screw people royally. Wall Street will take over SS and screw people out of their retirements.

Whenever there exists a pile of money somewhere (whether it be tangible or or keystrokes on the Fed’s Toteboard) some bunch of one percenter motrherfockers want to steal it.

Obama is the tool to help them do it. Romney also, too. Palin.

Want to guarantee full payment of SS benefits (which are rather modest) for the next 75 years? Raise the tax cap so that the 6% of workers who make more than a $110,000 a year pay taxes on all of their wages, just like the rest of us who make less than that amount.

BTW, Mr. Walkers suggestion should be seriously considered by those who are worried that SS is running out of money. Thanks Jon for this most excellent post.

They feel like “normal inflation.” General consensus among economists support the idea that growing the money supply or “printing” can lead to inflation so I’d be interested to know what you would consider all of our resources being employed.

I’m a little more conservative then the MMT folks but I’ve followed some of their theories and found them interesting.

I guess I’m a middle ground person. I’d like to see us tweek things by getting rid of the cap and configuring some sort of tax that makes those who have passive income have some “skin” in the system (isn’t it refreshing to see it inferred that the rich might not have enough skin in a program?) However, if the choice came to increasing age and decreasing benefits or printing. I’d totally be on board with printing to make up the difference for a couple of years. 62 is plenty old and many seniors are already looking at poverty level income if they are only subsisting on Social Security. I’m not willing to make it worse just to make Pete Peterson happy.

More and bigger, better funding is the obvious cure for Social Security solvency in the traditional sense.

What has Obama done?

First he tried to dupe Congress into attacking Social Security. They wouldn’t take the bait on that one.

So O set up a special “Deficit Commission” filled with one percenters to attack Social Security.

Then O reduced funding – contributions to SS through (payroll) tax cuts.

O wants to privatize it.

Like his hero Ronald Raygun, see Obama praise privatization. Private Banking! Yee Haw! Private Health Insurance! Yee Haw!

See Obama and JEB touting Charter Schools!

Mafia Bust Out continues unabated.

The way it was set up – to not be considered welfare – is, everyone pays in a little over their working lifetimes, and everyone gets back a little in their non-working old age.

Also, remember the phrase “safety net”. That’s why there’s a cap on wages. SS is supposed to pay everyone a modest amount, based on what you’ve made over your working life. If Bill Gates paid in on all his income, he’d get $1,000,000 monthly checks. I’d start to think it was no longer an “needed” safety net.

If you want to change the formulas, and make everyone pay in without a cap, but tell the 1% that they made enough and don’t need SS, then you’ve taken from those who made the money and redistributed to those who didn’t and that’s welfare.

I don’t have a problem with that if it keeps the needy olds from eating cat food. But if that’s your fix, call it what it is.

“Then O reduced funding – contributions to SS through (payroll) tax cuts.”

Correctomundo, hackworth! I read several sources that estimated this cost the SS $100 billion last year and may cost SS the same amount this year. Can’t kill SS, so O decides to slowly starve it so that there will be an impending SS crisis with a catfood commission to the rescue. He should be channeling FDR instead of Hoover.

This is the smartest thing ever.

Every country has the means to print its own currency. The government can even direct us all to take a Sharpy and add three zeros to all our current notes. Then everyone would be real rich.

You think income inequality is bad now, wait till minimum wage goes from $7.25 to $7250 per hour, while the CEO was making $1 Million per year, but then makes $1 Billion per year.

Oh, and the catfood went from $2.00 per can to $2000 to pay for then nw cost of wages and materials.

Problem solved.

I wonder if anyone already tried that solution in the 30′s and 40′s?

Technically last year the payroll tax holiday didn’t cost SS anything, because transfers from the General Fund to the SS Trust Fund equal to the amount lost were built into the law.

I don’t know if that’s true this year.

Minimum wage is NOT going to go from $7.25 to $7250. As it stands right now wage increases have been incrementally raised $1. I don’t see that changing by much. We’ll probably see an incremental wage increase that is somewhere around $9 shortly.

My point stands though. The treasury printed trillions to bail out the banking sector and we did not see inflation to the point of $7250 an hour or trillion dollar hamburgers as the right always seems to suggest. The treasury printed trillions of dollars to fund Iraq and Afghanistan and we had a Vice President FROM THE RIGHT espousing that “deficits don’t matter” so why all of a sudden am I supposed to care if the treasury needs to print money to ensure seniors are cared for? It’s all a bunch of talking points as far as I can see. Talking points to suggest that somehow or another the wealthy and well connected are more deserving of trillion dollar printing press bailouts than average citizens. I don’t buy it and quite frankly neither will the average American once they get to thinking about it.

You can cap the retirement amount without capping the amount placed in. As it stands right now Social Security is regressive rather than a progressive portion of our tax system. People like Romney or Buffet who earns most of their money passively rather than through labor pay next to nothing. Meanwhile people who labor every day pay more of their income as a percentage into the system.

So right now you have the wage earner who pays 10% of a less than $20,000 income and then you have a guy who makes over 20 million who pays 13.9% of his income.

Viewed from a a monopolist ethos ,since this the only one that counts ,how would our owners ‘ cartels benefit via job expansion ,deficit reduction , more competition, any policy that didn’t promote fascism and a third-world America ? Accordingly ,entitlements are already being phased out via a means-testing scheme that can make them welfare programs subject to block-grant oblivion .Anyone see a flaw in my reasoning ?

You seem to get it sort of.

It’s true that min. wage is NOT going to go from $7.25 to $7250. That’s an exageration to prove a point, which I did. If the wage increas is $1, then the supervisor who makes $8.05, can’t make less than that. If min. wage goes to $9, supervisor, manager, owner, etc. goes up. And so on, and so on.

Then you jump the tracks and complain about banks, and wars. Different issue. I’ll agree, that’s all wrong. Now how about you agree, it’s wrong to go the other way too.

You say regressive, but think about this. SS was never supposed to be progressive. It’s a safety net.

People like Romney or Buffet who earns most of their money passively rather than through labor pay next to nothing. Meanwhile people who labor every day pay more of their income as a percentage into the system.

Now let’s look at what they get back out of the system. $1500 to $2000 per month.

They pay in 12% of income up to $110k (not on their Big Bux) and get back about what they pay in. You pay in 12% of your income and get back about what you pay in.

It’s fair, unless you want to take more.

So as you say, now you have the wage earner who pays 12% of a less than $20,000 income and then you have a guy who makes over 20 million who pays (12% of the first $110k of his income to SS).

But he never takes out more than you. SS is different than tax.

No they aren’t different issues.

In order to fund the Iraq war we DID NOT fund it, we pulled out the printing presses.

In order to pay for the banking bailout we sold treasuries. In other words, we pulled out the printing presses.

They are not different issues at all.