About Raising Social Security’s Full Retirement Age - CNN Politics
Fear of being labeled as trying to “cut” Social Security benefits (thus “throwing grandma off the cliff” as some on the left would say), means many in Congress don’t even want to talk about Social Security reform. Case in point: the media frenzy when potential Presidential candidate Mike Pence suggested reforming Social Security should be “on the table” for discussion in future Congressional deliberations. Now, South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace has joined other realists by suggesting that raising Social Security’s full retirement age should be considered as part of much-needed Social Security reform. And she’s right. Simply put, beneficiaries are now living longer and collecting benefits for decades from a system designed to pay benefits for only a few years. The old benefit formula simply cannot sustain today’s demographic reality – incoming Social Security revenue is less than needed to pay benefits for an ever-increasing senior population – and increasing Social Security’s full retirement age for those not yet eligible for benefits is a change which would significantly improve Social Security finances. No “throwing grandma off the cliff” because only younger Americans – those still far away from collecting benefits – would be affected. Read about Representative Mace’s position on raising Social Security’s full retirement age in this unusually non-partisan CNN article by Paul LeBlanc and Tami Luhby.