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Economic growth will be restrained by Social Security 2100 Act
A highly respected and credentialed economist has reviewed House Democrats recent bill to “solve” Social Security’s financial woes. The bill, known as The Social Security 2100 Act, essentially proposes to substantially raise Social Security payroll taxes to cover the cost of…
Analysis of the Social Security Trustees’ Report
In a quite sobering analysis, an economic expert who previously served on the Board of Social Security Trustees, offers four important lessons he has learned from the Trustees’ latest report on the state of Social Security’s finances. Among those lessons are…
How to make your Social Security check bigger
You’ve undoubtedly seen advertisements about “secret” ways to increase your Social Security benefit, and most of these offer to reveal the so-called secret if you’ll only subscribe to their publication or buy whatever book they’re selling. Reality is that there…
How to Fund Social Security for 75 to 150 years
Bernice Napach’s article here in ThinkAdvisor summarizes new research from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College that declares any proposal to close Social Security’s financing gap should consider the creation of a trust fund capable of earning enough interest to…
The New Crisis Brewing in Social Security – Customer Service
Even casual followers of anything related to Social Security are likely aware of the program’s long term funding challenges due to changing demographics. But as Mark Miller of Reuters reports in this article, customer service is the newest flash point. Three…
Rep. Larson engaging with the GOP to pass historic Social Security reform
Rep. John Larson (D-CT) has been working on Social Security issues for most of his 20 years in Congress. He cites the statistic of 125,000 Social Security recipients per congressional district to underscore the importance of the program. The Social Security Trustees predict…
Author makes case for “writing off” Social Security
The central message of this piece written by The Motley Fool staff for Fox Business News is this: to avoid financial stress and disappointment in retirement, do not rely on Social Security benefits too heavily. True, there will always be some form of Social…
What will Social Security look like in 2035?
Social Security’s Trust funds (surpluses accumulated over the past several decades) will be exhausted in 2035. Across the board cuts of around 20% will occur for all beneficiaries at that time absent congressional action before then. Dan Caplinger notes the…
The benefits of IRAs that you might not know exist
There are many places you can save money for retirement if you don’t have access to a 401(k) or other workplace retirement plan. However, with an individual retirement account (IRA) it not only share some key features – such as tax…
Some serious consequences for being too dependent on Social Security benefits in retirement
According to a survey from the Insured Retirement Institute, only a quarter of baby boomers think they’re doing a good job of preparing for retirement and 42 percent of boomers don’t have anything saved for their retirement. And according to…