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How to use and interpret online retirement calculator
Yes, it’s impossible to predict the future on how much money you’ll need down to the dollar in your retirement, but you can make an educated guess by using a retirement calculator. In Kailey Fralick’s article for the Motley Fool, she…
Social Security is going to change
According to a survey by Nationwide, Social Security is the primary source of income for 49 percent of adults who have been retired for more than 10 years and 43 percent of recent retirees. The same study found that only…
How to avoid losing your Social Security benefits to the tax man
Your entire working life you paid into Social Security with the understanding that when you reach retirement age you can collect those benefits, but what you might not realize is that some of that money will likely go back to…
Deficits, Debt and how They Relate to Social Security – A Primer
Jeff Szymanski works in political communications at The Association of Mature American Citizens. He wrote this piece to explain the deficit, the debt, and federal spending in an easily understood way. The federal budget deficit (amount of overspending for one fiscal year) is predicted…
Social Security’s Future: Not the Program Grandpa Knew
That Social Security is unsustainable as we know it long-term is hardly news. Martin Feldstein’s opinion piece in MarketWatch explains how the increase in life expectancy, the decreased birth rate, and the payroll tax rate not having changed since 1983 have combined…
Social Security: A wildly successful antipoverty program. Can that continue?
By any calculation, Social Security’s role in greatly reducing poverty rates among America’s seniors cannot be disputed. David W. Rasmussen’s article notes that poverty rates among Americans aged 65+ were as high as 78% in 1939, down to 35% in 1959,…
The Drawbacks of Social Security Privatization
Privatization has been shown to save governments money in many instances. When it comes to Social Security, there have not been serious discussions on privatizing the program since about 2005. The idea does sound plausible on its face, as it would give workers more…
A novel thought: Cutting Social Security benefits a good thing?
Now before you jump to conclusions, take into consideration that the current Social Security benefit program is unsustainable, as reported in the latest Social Security Trustees’ Report release last June. And also keep in mind that it’s highly improbable that…
Immigration and Social Security
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) recently released the results of its study on immigration and its potential influence on the Social Security solvency dilemma. Calling “increased immigration a powerful policy tool in the effort to maintain the Social Security program,” BPC authors…
A Time for Thanks, and a Time for Safety
Since 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving Day to be a national holiday, families have gathered on that holiday to express gratitude for the blessings they’ve received. Lincoln’s proclamation set the day for observation as the last Thursday of the month,…