Can Boomers Be a Great Generation?
United, the Post War Generation can prove ourselves a great generation, not just a great big generation.
Let’s fix Social Security now!
This is as good a time as any to fix Social Security’s financing problems. In fact, Congress’s decision to allow the 2-percentage-point reduction in the payroll tax to expire as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations clears the path for restoring full solvency. Of course, Social Security has not contributed to the deficit in the past and technically cannot in the future because, by law, expenditures cannot exceed earmarked revenues. But Social Security’s promised benefits exceed scheduled taxes, creating a financing shortfall that needs to be fixed.
Will boomers and ‘millennials’ get along?
A study shows tensions over paying for entitlements–but also some respect-your-elders sentiment.
Get smart about Social Security in 2013
In a day and age when fewer and fewer people have a pension and many people don’t have a lot socked away for retirement, it’s becoming increasingly critical that you calculate the best time and strategy for you and (if you have one) your spouse to take Social Security.
So my wish for you is this: Get the timing right.
Reader Comment on Saving Social Security
Personally, should I be asked to forgo a modest amount of my promised SS benefits to keep the system solvent, I will consider it a patriotic sacrifice by one who has benefited handsomely from the American free-market economy.
How GOP offer would trim Social Security
A ‘chained CPI’ would mean lower cost-of-living raises for seniors.
Better news on near-retiree nest eggs
You might not feel as if you’re in great financial shape as you approach retirement. But a new study shows that the impact of the 2007-2009 recession on some of the oldest baby boomers might not be as bad as first thought . . . Social Security could cushion the blow of real estate and stock losses.
A retirement to-do list for the president
Challenges await on Social Security, Medicare and elder-care, and retiree savings
Social Security’s payroll tax-break: Let it die?
The 2% tax cut could make it harder to keep Social Security solvent.
TGB Elders and the 2012 Election
Did you watch the third and last debate Monday evening between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney?
I thought assigning foreign policy as the topic was a bad idea. More so than in elections past when the nation had not been going through such hard economic times, what voters most care about now are pocketbook and social issues.
The two candidates apparently agreed as they veered into domestic policy no matter what questions moderator Bob Sheiffer asked. For us – elders – what has most been missing from the debates was a good and thorough discussion of Social Security and Medicare and I’m ticked off about that.
Older Adults Should Be Able to Retire With Dignity and Security
It is important to establish that these issues aren’t just relevant for today’s older adults. All Americans should ask: What will a compromised Social Security or Medicare program or the absence of a meaningful pension mean for me when I wish to retire?
Generation Gap
The pundit world was buzzing after the VP debate on thursday, but there is one aspect that went largely unnoticed. There is a blatant generational gap between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.
Talking Points Memo has an excellent photo gallery of each running mate that really illustrates the age gap between these two men. Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.
Should ‘the 47%’ Pay Income Taxes?
A look at the effects of tax breaks for low-income families with children.
Tonight’s Presidential Debate and Social Security
If Mr. Lehrer does his job well, that second segment will include questions about Medicare and Medicaid along with Obamacare and Romneycare although 15 minutes does not seem nearly enough time to cover the topic particularly given the vast gulf between Democratic and Republican parties.
What is not mentioned in the schedule is Social Security, an omission for which AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond took the debate organizers’ to task:
Democratic Convention: Social Security and Medicare
Did you watch the Democratic Convention last week? I did. There were some damned good speakers leading up to the main event but most viewers didn’t get to see them, even on MSNBC and CNN which favored uninformed pundit chatter…
Baby Boomers: The Entitled Generation, by Bill Keller, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist
Bill Keller, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, painstakingly summed up his baby boom birth cohort as “The Entitled Generation.” This snippy criticism is typical of jeremiads written by and for Boomers to portray unseemly conclusions about the nation’s largest generation. So writes the columnist from on high, “We are an entitled bunch.” Keller’s views fall way short of balance. For example, while warning of and alleging future entitlement fund shortfalls to be imposed by the generation, he…
The Constant, Wearying Assault on Elders
On Sunday, while I was reading and gathering information for yesterday’s post about the AARP secret meeting on Social Security, I could feel how tired I am of it all.
“All” being the necessity to maintain a constant watch on politicians and their corporate overlords together with exhausting and usually confusing details of our financial and medical lives.
AARP’s Secret Social Security Meeting
A week from tomorrow, on the evening of 27 March, AARP CEO A. Barry Rand is hosting an “off-the-record, salon-style conversation” at the home of Washington lobbyist, Robert Rabin.
Billed as The E Street Exchange (for that is where Mr. Rabin’s home is located), the purpose of the event is to talk about “Strengthening Social Security: Facing Up to the Challenge.” (See the formal invitation here)
Unless you have been under a rock for the past few years, you know that when the words, Social Security, strengthen and challenge are strung together in the same breath or sentence, someone is out to take away your benefit.
AARP’s Position on Social Security
Below is a letter sent to AARP CEO A. Barry Rand from TGB reader Jim Newman objecting to Rand’s support of “strengthening” Social Security by adopting the Chained-CPI method of calculating cost-of-living. As Jim explains, this calculation would dramatically reduce COLA increases to Social Security especially for those most in need.
Undoubtedly, in this year’s budget debates, Republicans will try to cut Social Security one way or another and AARP has a lot of clout in Congress.
Crabby Old Lady and the White House
Here we go again. Remember when Crabby Old Lady told you about a letter emailed from her house to the White House? And then, a few days later, the pro forma reply that bore not a single reference to the…
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