Your Social Security benefits could be cut by a quarter in 2032

Via Actionable News

Your Social Security benefits could be cut by a quarter in 2032. Here’s what to know

Americans’ Social Security benefits will have to be cut by roughly a quarter in six years due to depleted funds, according to a June 9 report from the Social Security Board of Trustees. That’s months sooner than the group had estimated in 2025.

For years, the trustees and experts have been warning about Social Security’s unstable financial footing. An aging population, low birth rates and worsening income inequality have driven the program to pay out more in benefits than it takes in from taxes.

“The program has been paying out more in benefits, more than it takes in in revenues, and that creates the financing gap that can’t go on forever,” said Shai Akabas, vice president of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Click to expand...

What I find amusing about this whole discussion is that many people just did not prepare for old age and retirement.

You see it in the comments of any article or video on this subject. I paid into this, so I am entitled.

As I have pointed out many times, this is not an insurance policy, a retirement account, or an investment plan. This is a welfare transfer payment subject to policy changes mandated by Congress. This was already decided in a Supreme Court case in 1960, Flemming versus Nestor.

Flemming v. Nestor (1960) was a landmark Supreme Court case that ruled Social Security benefits are not a contractual right, establishing that Congress can alter or terminate them, even for those who have paid into the system. The Court upheld the termination of benefits for Ephram Nestor, an immigrant deported for past Communist Party membership, finding that the Social Security system is a social welfare program, not a private insurance contract, and that the termination did not violate his Fifth Amendment due process rights.

Click to expand...

Life circumstances and bad luck do cause some people to end up indigent. This is what the program should be based on.

The vast majority of recipients just didn’t make good choices over their working lives. They are now reliant on a program whose future rests on the whims of politicians.

Yes, this will get fixed, but only at the last minute. We will likely see a combination of higher taxes, higher retirement ages, higher income thresholds for taxation, and, if that is not enough, the government will monetize the debt it issues to cover the expense.

It all goes back to the root problem that the French economist Bastiat determined back in the late 19th century.

“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else”

This mindset leads to moral and economic decay, as it encourages dependency rather than self-reliance. He believed that such attitudes ultimately harm society by fostering a culture of entitlement rather than one of responsibility and productivity.

Bottom line: structure your life so you are not dependent on the state.

Tweet

Continue reading...

[ H/T The Burning Platform ]