As the population gets older the government looks harder at raising the age that people can collect their benefits. Let me educate people of all ages about the benefits they have earned over their life time. Social Security is money that you earned over a life time of work. It is calculated by how much you earned over 30 years. If you did not work for 30 years, the years you did not earn money are averaged into your Social Security payment as zeros. That brings down the amount you collect. Raising the age that you can collect your full benefit reduces how much you will collect after you retire. On top of this the government taxes your Social Security so it is handing you the money you earned over your life and reaching into your pocket to take it back. What’s more that big chunk of money they take out of your check for Social Security is not returned to you at tax time. In fact it is sneakily added to how much the government takes when you reach $30,000 in a year, so it is a double whammy. None of this is really necessary to keep Social Security solvent. That means to have the money to pay you every month. It should not surprise you that reducing what you will or do get is all politics. There are two ways to keep Social Security solvent. One is to take the cap off the amount the government has put on it, so everyone is paying in to it. Presently, when you earn a certain amount you do not have to pay into the pool any more. That is the cap. If the cap was removed, there would be a ton of money to pay seniors and the disabled. The second thing that would solve the problem is for Congress to stop using Social Security’s money and putting IOU’s in with the money that has been budgeted to pay Seniors and the disabled. If they did those two things we could all take a cruise every year using the money you would get every month. Instead they are raising the age that you get Social Security, so you don’t live long enough to collect it.
Have you noticed that the guy or gal who wrangles shopping carts are 60 and up. Well, I have. Imagine going to the store and seeing your mom, Dad, grandmother, or grandfather pushing carts across the parking lot to earn enough to survive on. That really happens.