This doesn’t make front page news… But it should.
Every year, cost of living adjustments increase Social Security benefits.
Over the past decade, payouts have increased by an average of 1.66% per year, according to the Social Security Administration (SSA).
But for 2019, the increase will be 2.8% to keep pace with inflation.
Seems like a trivial difference until you realize that’s 69% higher than expected.
That amounts to about $39 extra per check for the average retiree, according to the SSA.
And with about 62 million Americans receiving Social Security, that’s an extra $2.4 billion per month… $29 billion per year.
Social Security is underfunded by $50 TRILLION. By the government’s own estimates, the Social Security fund will run out of money in 2034.
But those calculations used previous cost of living adjustments.
Keep in mind that all future cost of living adjustments will compound on top of 2019’s increase.
So even if they get back to the 1.66% average adjustments, the extra $29 billion is included in the base for future calculations.
Will Social Security really last until 2034?
Last year, they said it would last until 2035… Wrong. One year passed and insolvency came two years closer…
Before that, the Social Security Administration estimated that the funds would last until 2040… wrong again!
After Congress passed some Social Security reforms in 1983, the SSA expected the system to remain financially sound for 75 years, until 2058.
Say it with me… they were wrong.
The goal posts keep moving.
That’s strike one…
In 2006, the SSA expected the US birthrate—the number of babies each woman is expected to have in her lifetime—to be 2.01 by 2020.
Well guess what… they were WRONG. Take a sip if your playing along at home to the Social-Security-Administration-is-wrong drinking game.
The 2017 birthrate already fell to 1.8, the lowest in decades.
So just when Social Security is expected to run out of money, the fewest number of workers in decades will be entering the workforce.
Social Security depends on a ratio of 3 workers to support each retiree.
Today, there are only 2.8 workers paying into Social Security for every beneficiary collecting.
The Social Security Administration estimates that this will fall to 2 workers per retiree by 2030… surely this time their estimate is accurate…
That’s strike two.
And the economy is currently about as good as it gets.
October unemployment was 3.7% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It hasn’t been this low since 1969…
There are record numbers of people in the workforce… paying into Social Security.
Yet Social Security still looks dismal, during the best economic times in decades.
What happens when a recession hits?
Or forget a recession, what happens at normal unemployment levels?
And that’s the third strike.
The Social Security Administration has been wrong on just about every projection and estimate it has made.
I’m not trying to be alarmist, but it is rather shocking that people shrug off the reality.
This data isn’t coming from me, it isn’t some wild conspiracy theory. It’s the most optimistic outlook from the Board of Trustees for Social Security.
Unfortunately, many people will do absolutely nothing with this information. It’s easier to just Instagram your way to retirement.
And these people will have their lives turned upside down—benefits cut, retirement age increased, pushed out of the system… Something has to give.
But when you see it coming, there is so much you can do.
You can take legal steps to reduce your taxes, and funnel the savings into your retirement.
Putting away an extra $1,000 per year can result in a difference of more than $100,000 when compounded over 30 years.
Or, you could establish certain self-directed IRA structures or a solo 401(k).
These dramatically increase your contribution limits and vastly expand your investment options–real estate, cryptocurrency, private equity, etc.
Or, learn how to be a better investor…
Saving an extra $2,000 per year and generating, on average, 2% more per year (i.e. 10% versus 8%), will make you an additional $610,000 over 30-years.
Just don’t let the government plan for you. They’ll give you great estimates… and as always, they will be wrong.
Some other strikes. Congress is using the SS trust fund to help pay for SSDI because that trust fund was exhausted so rather than cut disability benefits for 30 year olds with bi-polar disorders or some pigs who has eaten themselves into a wheelchair they made up the shortfall in their benefit check with money meant for retirees.
Its why I started taking SS at 62. At least I’ll get some of my contribution back. The socalled financial advisors that advise you to wait until 67 or even 70 to draw benefits are too stupid to manage anyone’s money including their own. The system could fail, you could die or any number of things could take place that makes waiting to get your benefits a fools game.
But you have to retire in order to keep more than half of that small check.Or you can get a Walmart greeter job to stay under the max income.
I think the max this year you can earn and not have the check cut is 17,060, referring to the folks who got out at 62.
Yeah, but those land whale 35 year old guys driving the Wally World scooters who wear shorts even in the winter? I have noticed they must be stimulating the economy in spite of it buying all those great looking tattoos they have all over their underused legs.
Avoiding income tax on your social security benefits is the least of your problems in your sixties. It isn’t that much and if you really need the difference between what you’ll get at 67 and at 62 you will probably never have enough to retire anyway and if you can’t collect before 2030 your benefits are going to be cut anyway. May as well enjoy it while you can.
You’re tempting me, unit. It’s like that conflict immigrants face when they are told they can wait 10 to 15 years for the chance to come to the US legally or come in illegally and start earning cash right now
If it will take 12 years to break even on the payments you skip between early retirement and your FRA, the only thing that holds you back is the reduced survivors check.
I just figure that if I hit my 70’s and don’t get any Social Security, I can always go back into male prostitution. If I’m going to get fucked in the ass, I might as well get fucked in the ass.
Fuck You author we have PAID INTO THE SS AND Clinton STOLE THE DOLLARS TO FALSELY BALANCE THE BUDGET WE HAVE SEEN LIES AND DECEIT IN THE MONEY WE SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED! sO FUCK YOU 100 TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am concerned about the filthy MF’ers of all parties who eagerly looted SS like crack whores turning their sights on IRA’s and 401’s. The Rev. Jackscum and various prog filth including Alice Rivlin have suggested many times the money is simply not safe in our lameass hands. I mean, how many of us have gotten “outsize” returns of 2 or 3% annually like government plans get? How many of us have been so f’ing smart that with 30 year bonds at 3. something% we have gotten 2.7% like my local city pension plans. AND, they are so fuqueing smart they hire expensive professional consultants to get that. None of us would ever think of paying consultants to get returns below bond rates. THAT IS WHY, we simply cannot be trusted with our own retirement money. We are incapable of seeing the brilliance in their management style. BARF!
Lyndon Johnson was the first president to borrow from the Social Security “Trust Fund”.
He needed to pay for the Vietnam War.
Next was Ronald Reagan and the military buildup of the 1980’s.
Don’t forget to thank the Peanut Farmer and the Dems for taxing it.
The Ivy League shitheads are going to save all of us. They will flood the country with 80 IQ third worlders with ten kids and dozens of chain migrating elderly relatives who the Dhimmicrats will give SSI to because “it is the right thing to do” while the immigrants, all of whom will be receiving multiple government benefits will pay sales tax when they buy shit and we’ll all be rich and fall down worshipping them for their brilliance. Right? Ocasio-Cortez is convinced. Bernie too.
Social Security is an insurence program not a retirement program . I worked 42 years plus if you count my part time jobs in high school . After a serious illness I began collecting the disability benefits that I and my employers paid the premium or tax to support . My application was never challenged but approved with professional assistance from the people working for the administration . I felt a bit ashamed until the people explained I paid for this protection and paid their salaries and they were here for me . Perhaps my experience was unique from the rumor mill but I doubt it .
As for the lack of funding we need only look at congress and their financial shenanigans and true failure on multiple levels such as not securing laws to protect private sector pensions and not dipping into what should have been a locked box for social security funding .
Funny we have $814 MILLON to put high tech hardware on mars to send back pictures of dirt and fund the NASA GROUP to study the pictures of that dirt but we cannot effectively secure finances to support health and welfare for people who have worked and decades paying taxes to support our nation . Then we have decades of military intervention around the globe with nothing to show for it except for a small minority of the connected few elites in government and investor class . Yes the circle jerk from Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street while a huge percentage of Americans futures were squandered and bankrupted while the circle jerk group laugh till they set their pants .
Any question why socialism is looking like a future for America you only have to look to the circle jerk !
Writer of this article must be very young and very naive. Do you think any one of us here do not already know this? With age comes wisdom so please listen and learn. You are treating hard working people here very disrespectfully and discounting those who have worked hard and manage what monies they do have to the best of our ability. That’s reality!
Living solely on a Social Security check means living way below the poverty level. That’s the reality! Seniors are the least among us and the last considered..right along with children in need. Creative money handling means doing the most with the pittance received. Could the writer of this article do so? Nothing is forever. Yet, still today “financial planners” and corrupt politicians spew the same exact rhetoric heard before the crash of the Great Depression. Invest in such and such over so many years so you can have a hefty retirement – you are talking to people here who are VERY RESOURCEFUL WITH WHAT THEY DO RECEIVE! You forget about life’s unforeseeable events.
The last pittance of an increase was when George Bush the youngest doled out a few more dollars to us retirees before he left office. It was never meant to be a living wage…but with our economy and unforeseeable human events in ones life…that’s the way it is for millions who have worked hard to build this nation. Only to have it destroyed by the corrupt at the “top of the food chain” in plush offices and “financial planners” giving the same advice over and over despite the many changes in world events and in the economy…. to line their own pockets….that’s reality. Most “company retirement plans” and government pension plans are being pillaged as we speak.
There are many seniors struggling today, particularly women who entered the workforce later in life after raising children, and many seniors who have or still are raising grand children and even great grandchildren due to our massively drugged-up society. They stepped up to care for family. Investing…in the Ponzi scheme that is the stock market…what a hoot! Even the so-called “housing market” is rife with corrupt double dealings. We seem to keep doing the same things over and over expecting different results…hence the insanity of the Derivatives that still today continue onward despite the crash of 2008. Haven’t you heard the Russians and Chinese have been dumping these fake instruments for several years? They don’t want our corrupt paper.
All investing information is dangerous in a time when this “economy” is at its very last gasp.
Here’s one for ya…..What you don’t have in your hand, you don’t own! And one day soon it will all be worth more as toilet paper.
The young Able-bodied NON-workers can make more money milking the system while not missing any meals and load up two shopping carts full of steaks, roasts thanks to Uncle Sugar’s generosity. Yes, the system is unwinding itself. America is a nation greatly out of control and on its death bed.
Ross Perot was right when he warned the American people that we “will hear a giant sucking sound of jobs leaving the country!” He was right! And we paid no attention.
Word to the Wise (Good Post)
“Here’s one for ya…..What you don’t have in your hand, you don’t own! And one day soon it will all be worth more as toilet paper.”
RiNS
“As long as its registered, the government can take it.”
Two words: Midnight Gardening.
As long as its registered, the government can take it.
Wow 2.8%, that’s a hell of a COLA… and another lie by the Feds.
Too bad the real inflation rate is around 6%.