Social Security Continues to Be Imperiled By Economic Collapse
Posted on:6/1/2009
Written By: Chris Robideaux
| Compounding an already unfathomable crisis, Americans have lost more than $15 trillion in housing and stock wealth, with the great bulk of the losses being incurred by people age 45 and older. |
Compounding an already unfathomable crisis, Americans have lost more than $15 trillion in housing and stock wealth, with the great bulk of the losses being incurred by people age 45 and older. This is another dagger in the heart of Social Security funds, and an effective transfer of fiscal advantage to younger workers and those yet to enter the labor force, because they will be able to buy into the stock market and buy homes at close to half the price they would have paid just two years ago. What do our overlords, ranging from editorial board members to former commerce secretary Pete Peterson, plan in response to this situation? At the same time that they are handing trillions of dollars to the bankers who wrecked the economy, they are proposing to cut Social Security in the name of "fiscal responsibility".
This plan is even more dumbfounding because workers have already paid for their Social Security benefits. The Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security, by drawing down its trust fund, will be able to pay benefits until the year 2049 with no changes whatsoever. That conflicts with reports that the system as we know it will be broke by 2037, if not sooner.
This puts workers with disabilities as well as those collection supplemental security income at an even higher risk then they've been at in recent war-spending/recession years.