Latest News
The Chained CPI in people terms
At last comes a story in a major news outlet that explains in people terms what exactly the Chained CPI will or won’t do for the family budget. The New York Times deserves a CJR laurel for its Saturday “Your Money” piece by Tara Siegel Bernard…
$7.9 Billion in Improper Social Security Payments in FY 2012
The Social Security Administration (SSA) needs to focus on “program integrity,” a polite term for reducing fraud and payment errors, the agency’s inspector general told Congress last week. Reducing improper payments is one of the challenges facing the next SSA commissioner,…
Good Question: Should We Force People To Save For Retirement?
In a time where individual choice rules the way Americans save for retirement, Americans are making a lot of bad choices. We have to opt into a 401(k), pick the percentage of our income we contribute, and pick the mutual funds…
How the Chained CPI Affects Social Security Payments
In his 2014 budget, President Obama proposes changing the measure of inflation used to calculate annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustments from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI) to the chained CPI beginning in 2015. This change would modestly…
HOW SECURE IS SOCIAL SECURITY?
If you’re retired or close to retiring, then you’ve probably got nothing to worry about–your Social Security benefits will likely be paid to you in the amount you’ve planned on (at least that’s what most of the politicians say). But…
PROMISES, PROMISES: Obama $4 trillion deficit-cutting plan rests on iffy assumptions
The issue: Even after a hard-fought deficit-cutting deal in 2011 and a tax-increase measure in January, Washington still has a considerable way to go to wrestle intractable budget deficits under control. The Congressional Budget Office estimates cumulative deficits of roughly $7…
Elite conventional wisdom is losing on Social Security
In the past two weeks, two radically different proposals for the future of Social Security have provoked widespread discussion in the media. One proposal was made by President Barack Obama, as part of his proposed budget. This called for using…
Republican Plan To Turn The Tables On Chained CPI Falls Flat
The chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee tried hard Wednesday to flip Republicans from supporters of chained CPI — the mechanism used in President Obama’s budget to cut Social Security benefits — into opponents. By Thursday morning, however, it…
How would ‘Chained CPI’ affect your benefits?
A House Ways and Means subcommittee on Wednesday held a hearing to examine the impacts of using “Chained CPI” to slow the growth in entitlement spending and increase tax revenue. President Obama has put Chained CPI on the table as part of his proposal…
Republicans embrace Obama’s offer to trim Social Security benefits
President Obama’s offer to trim Social Security benefits has perplexed and angered Democrats, but GOP leaders are embracing the proposal and rushing to jump-start a debate that will delve even more deeply into the touchy topic of federal spending on the elderly.…