Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "‘HOLY SH*T!’: Biden RAISES Social Security Payments On Way Out | The Kyle Kulinski Show" video.

  1. The correct situation is to remove the limit and expand it to more types of income. If they did that the program would be solvent for another 75+ years. Part of why social security is in this mess, is that a larger and larger share of money made is not subject to any taxation for social security at all.
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  2.  @Radar88269  You don't understand how this works. Whenever there is an increase on payments, they life the cap to cover it. The first $168600 earned income for the 2024 was subject to social security tax, and nothing beyond that. Unearned income was also not subject to the tax. So, there's no sending a check in this case, as there wouldn't be any money to pay, unless the poster is actually making more than that amount of money.
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  3.  @charlotteruse8718  They do, that's what Medicare Advantage is.
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  4. This is a cut for everybody that is younger. It amazes me how people let the Democrats get away with cuts to social security that the GOP would never be able to get away with.
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  5.  @carolbrandt1086  You never paid taxes for social security on the portion that we're talking about. Fair would be not giving money based on income that was never taxed to support the program. Seriously, read the information the social security administration has on the WEP and GPO, the calculations just claw back some of the money that shouldn't have been paid out on the basis of the social security taxes that were actually paid.
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  6. What about those of us that are going to retire after 2035 when the trust is projected to hit the point where it can't pay the obligations? They've already had to raise the retirement age to try and keep the fund solvent, this move pushes that date a few months earlier. The reason why those folks weren't included is due to changes in the law back the last time that they addressed a funding crisis in the program. The change here is that people who did not pay into the system for a portion of their income and had pensions are getting free money at the expense of younger workers who may well not get the money that we were promised.
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  7. The social security administration is still working out how to do this, but that just gives me the sense that it's another unfunded mandate. There should have been an explicit revenue source included such as specifying that any money that is spent on this needs to be offset by a raise to the cap the way that they normally do for COLAs.
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  8. You're already likely getting more than anybody that doesn't retire before the system becomes insolvent. Nobody cares about us, they raised the age of retirement eligibility, and now they're siphoning money off for retirees that have pensions.
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  9. That's an interesting perspective. What I see is money being spent out of the trust for people that have other retirement and speeding up the race to insolvency of the social security system. Meanwhile, I'm in my mid-40s and without some serious changes, I might well not get my full social security payments. They've already raised the retirement age so fewer people live long enough and those that do can collect on it for less time.
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  10. Yes, and this is one of the reasons why having a gerontocracy is so bad. These lawmakers mostly already have social security, and if not, they've got a pension from being in congress.
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  11. Social security was designed as a supplement to pensions. And it's really a combination of social security, a pension, medicare, various welfare programs and discounts for the elderly. That being said, I don't disagree that it needs to be raised. Pensions are far less common than they used to be, and it's a lot harder for people to save for their own retirement. The way to do it is to make all taxable income subject to the tax and eliminate the limit. That resulting money should be able to allow for increasing the benefits without causing too much trouble down the line, provided that they take some care in how much of the increase to dedicate to additional benefits.
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  12. The unfair thing is that all of us younger workers are being screwed by this. It pushes the date of insolvency closer to now and it mostly is going to people that already have some sort of a pension. I don't see anything in particular wrong with fixing it in cases where the pension basically isn't there, but there should have been a specific funding source tied to this to not screw over the young folks that are already having to contend with depressed wages, age increases for eligibility and a fund that's likely to be insolvent in roughly 8 years from now.
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  13.  @RomaHeart  For you, as somebody in his 40s, this is just more theft of my social security benefits. I'm not going to be old enough before the trust hits insolvency and they've already increased the retirement age in an effort to push that off. I'm sorry, but it's hard to really feel to bad about people that have a pension and are getting social security not getting as much as they might when I'm paying in to a system where I might not even get as much out as I paid in.
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  14. And what of us younger folks? I'm in my mid-40s and this results in the social security shortfall coming sooner. This is literally stealing out of the retirement accounts of millions of younger workers that did not get a say in this.
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  15. You should be even angrier. The money is going to people with pensions to cover income that was never taxed for social security and there hasn't been anything to indicate where the money is coming from.
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  16. You weren't screwed, you simply never paid in on some of your income. You weren't receiving social security for income that you didn't pay the tax on. The calculations are done on the basis of trying to capture some of the social security tax that was never collected. The people that are being screwed are the younger folks that have to work longer and receive fewer benefits due to things like this.
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  17. It gets even better, everything I've seen suggests that this money is going to come from young people who were already getting the shaft when it comes to social security via the age increasing and whatever reductions are required to deal with the shortfall. And nobody in power seems to be talking about doing anything about it.
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  18.  @RomaHeart  That sounds better, Bernie is usually smarter about things like this. The money is ultimately coming from younger workers that are already facing a shortfall by the time we retire. Had Bernie been behind this there would have been an explicit increase in the taxable social security income in order to make sure that it didn't result in robbing young people to fund.
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  19.  @Po1itica11yNcorrect  That's absolutely monstrous. People getting hit with a reduction due to WEP never paid into the system for the portion that they lose. It was there to prevent people from earning social security benefits on the basis of earnings that were never taxed, hence why it's the Windfall Elimination Provision. Likewise, the GPO is a reduction of 2/3 of the government pension for the money that wasn't taxed. Whereas the young folks are mostly being taxed on 100%, but potentially being paid out at some lower percentage than what we paid in for. Meanwhile, money is being given to people to cover benefits for which they did not pay and are not entitled.
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  20. Social security recipients are already receiving payments that outstrip the ability of the program to replenish itself based on the revenue sources available. The result is that for anybody that's in their early 50s or younger is likely to see a cut to our benefits. And, we've got no reason to believe that there's any changes coming to address the situation. Especially when bad legislation like this is increasing the burn rate on the funds without increasing any sort of revenue to pay for it.
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  21.  @lindaleeyou1234  Exactly, this money is coming out of the pockets of younger workers that won't retire before the benefit cuts happen due to the trust being insolvent. There's still time to fix the situation, but from all appearances, they're not even going to try to resolve things. They're just going to pay out less to the younger folks who had fewer opportunities to save or earn a pension. This is a massive reason why having a gerontocracy is so problematic. They got theirs, the hell with the rest of us.
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  22. It happened because the people impacted by this are in close contact with the lawmakers. They weren't getting those payouts because they weren't taxed on the income that would have lead to the benefits they're getting. The WEP and GPO really only apply to certain situations where you've got income that wasn't subject to social security taxation and a pension. The social security benefits get reduced by a portion of the pension amount, but these people are still doing better than what you'd see with just social security. If they want to fix it, just increase the amount of the pensions and fund that. Social security has it's own tax and it shouldn't be going to pay people benefits above what they paid in for.
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  23. It also pushes the program closer to insolvency.
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  24.  @jaynesambito1315  The increases are paid for by increasing the cap on income taxed for social security. The issue here is that this new law is paying out benefits to people who never paid in on that portion of their income, and they didn't even require that the ceiling on taxed income increase to cover it. The result is that those that are too young are getting screwed so that a few percent of older people get benefits for which they were never entitled. The reductions sound bad, until you realize that the GPO only eliminates 2/3 of the amount they got in pension and it covers money that they were never taxed for social security on. So, they get 1/3 of the benefits on that portion of their earnings for free at the expense of everybody else. The WEP is hard for me to understand, but it's capped.
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  25.  @SonofStormblessed  Even just requiring an offset via hike to the ceiling on social security earnings to not screw over younger workers would be a step in the right direction. The people getting these benefits were already getting a portion that was based on income they were never taxed on.
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  26. The best part is that this comes at the expense of younger workers, who are already facing a shortfall and increases to the retirement ages.
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  27. They just get the regular COLAs that come from increasing the portion of income that's taxed. The people that really get screwed are folks like me that won't hit retirement age before the fund hits insolvency and I see no evidence that anybody with any power is doing anything to address that. There's a very real reality that by the time I hit the full retirement age in the 2040s that I won't get as much out as I put in. On top of that, there are few pensions left and everything has been more expensive due to deregulation and neo-liberal economic policies.
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  28. That would be a lie, the money to fund this is being stolen from younger workers. This will cause the social security trust to go insolvent months earlier because it's an unfunded mandate to increase benefits.
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  29. Yes and this also means that the time to deal with the issues in the program has been reduced by about 6 months as these are people getting benefits for which they were never taxed.
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  30.  @InnerRise  The young are. This is to give people benefits on earnings that was never taxed, and there is no provision that I've heard that raises the ceiling on social security earnings in order to fund it. The result is that the fund goes insolvent earlier, and the younger folks get some combination of reduction in benefits and age hike to keep anybody getting any money.
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  31.  @PeachyFlaming0  That's not true, and Kyle should not be saying that. The WEP and GPO exist to reduce money from leaking out of the program to people for earnings that were never subject to the social security tax. In short, folks haven't been getting those benefits, because you hadn't been paying in. And from what I can work out, the benefits that you were getting, especially with the GPO, included 1/3 of the normal amount of benefits on a portion of the income that was never taxed for social security prior to this change being made.
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  32.  @NatureBoy12100  They didn't pay money on it. I don't see an issue in terms of changing how the calculation of the reduction is done to clarify that it only impacts years they were working at one of the affected jobs, but this is money that's being given to people that was never taxed for.
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  33.  @dougieretro8896  Yep, this could have been done in a way that didn't screw over young people. They could have just specified that the social security administration needs to include it when calculating the increase in the social security income that gets taxed to pay for the program. It still wouldn't be fair as most of the people benefiting did not pay for the portion of benefits that they will now be getting as there were offsets for the pensions they got which were partially offset by a reduction in social security benefits. But, it wouldn't have screwed young people over as hard.
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  34.  @xEnder515  It won't be completely bankrupt or drained, but at the rate they're paying out, they will be insolvent somewhere around 2033 or 2055 and be unable to pay out the promised benefits if nothing is done to address the problem. And, giving out free money to people that weren't paying taxes on it is going to make it happen sooner. The GPO and WEP mostly just takes money back on benefits for which the people never paid taxes on. It's why it's the Windfall Elimination Provision, not the We hate government Employees Provision.
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  35.  @carolynbaker2405  That's not how the program works. The program reduces the social security benefits by a portion of what you got from the pension. And, it does so because that portion was never taxed for social security. What's worse, is that the reduction is less than it should be as you get some benefit for earnings that were never taxed for social security due to how the calculations are performed. Meanwhile, the younger folks aren't going to get the full payout they should have gotten due to the age of retirement being increased and the funds not being there to pay them out. Which will happen sooner due to this free money being given out.
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  36.  @suzanne9150  For the time being, but there's going to be a shortfall projected to happen by 2033, and things like this legislation push that forward. Hopefully, they'll raise the amount of taxable income to offset that, but it should have been written into the law and it doesn't appear that there is any plan for paying for it.
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  37.  @Outlier2024  Yes, however, when the system was set up, you didn't have the kind of disparity we have now in terms of the richest folks getting most of their income via things like interests, capital gains and other unearned income. I'm not sure how we would resolve this in a sustainable long term way without expanding the tax both in terms of how much earned income it taxable for it and into unearned income.
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  38.  @bowwow7505  We're crying about it because you didn't pay the social security taxes to earn that portion of your benefits and there hasn't been a source of income indicated to cover the increase. Which means that when the program runs low in the next decade, the measures to save it will need to be more significant.
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  39.  @RomaHeart  It's more fair to rob you than it is to rob me. The WEP and GPO were enacted as part of a set of fixes aimed at preserving the program into the future. By rolling them back, it makes the program go insolvent sooner. There aren't that many people who are impacted by this that didn't have the choice to take other work. And, it does seem rather unfair that workers that may not have even become old enough to vote for decades after the changes were made are being expected to work longer and there's still a shortfall that means that he money that I see on my social security statements should really have an asterix because there's no guarantee right now that it will be anywhere near that much if they keep giving the money away without finding a way of offsetting it.
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  40. Had this passed before the election, it would have hurt them with young working class men as this is taking money from those of us that are young enough to have to contend with both increased retirement age for eligibility and a reduction in payout due to the funds running low. I'm not surprised it passed at this point, most folks are just not paying attention as the elections are over and we have nearly 2 years for people to forget this was done.
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  41.  @RomaHeart  They're coming, the fund is going to run a shortfall sooner due this as the money being given out is based on income that was never taxed for the payouts. As far as I've seen, there is no funding source to make up the difference either.
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  42.  @ladyknu-knu9906  You got yours, the cuts come when the program runs low on money and can't continue to pay out. There's still some time to fix it, but things like this where money is being given out without them taxing for it is going to hasten it. The awareness of the shortfalls have been around for years, this shouldn't be news that anything that increases the payouts without being offset by increases in the cap on social security income is going to lead to eventual cuts to benefits. The lack of anybody official explaining to the young folks how they're going to avoid cutting benefits to pay for this or what the funding source is is not a mistake.
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  43.  @annmarieknapp2480  But, the folks that paid in did get their benefits. They may not in the future, but they did get their benefits. the GPO and WEP exist to cover the funds that were not taxed for social security. Hence why those folks only get some of their social security and not all of it. You can read about it on the social security administration website, the reductions due to the GPO and WEP are less than the amount that you get from those programs and it covers income that wasn't taxed for social security, not all income.
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  44.  @Po1itica11yNcorrect  The GPO and WEP apply to income that was never taxed for social security and the reduction is only a portion of the amount of the pension. People that were being impacted by the GPO and WEP had the option of investing in those same retirement accounts. They just got a break in terms of having some of their income not taxed for social security, even though they're now going to get the benefits as if they did.
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  45. This helps several percentage points of the population, while hastening the demise of the program for anybody that isn't going to retire before the program goes insolvent. It's just another F U from the gerontocracy to the regular working class people.
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  46. I personally remember, it's part of why I didn't vote for the Democrats. This is coming out of my paycheck and there's been no effort made to explain to me or any of the younger workers where they're going to get the money to pay for this expansion other than stealing more of our social security money.
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  47.  @Po1itica11yNcorrect  Yep and for 2024, it was $168,600. As you're implying, it does get raised to cover the costs of paying out. But, there will need to be some sort of a change or the program is going to run out of cash to pay out the promised benefits.
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  48. As it stands, it's an unfunded mandate to increase payments. The result is that the insolvency date for the social security trust has moved forward several months and younger workers are going to see a cut in our benefits if nothing is done about the situation. To make matters worse, with so many old people in congress, there's not much interest on their part to do anything to address the issue. They've already increased the retirement age, the next thing would be either more increases in retirement age or a reduction in benefits, because this signals that they aren't interested in increasing the amount of money that's subject to the social security tax to pay for the additional spending this brings.
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  49. I'm not sure that that justifies stealing from future generations that are already contributing more than they'll get out of it if there aren't changes to fix this mess.
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  50. This isn't a good policy, this will result in a reduction in benefits for millions of future retirees if nothing is done about it.
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  51.  @Po1itica11yNcorrect  The point is that they shouldn't be handing more out to the retirees without addressing the issues with the fund. They've already stolen a large amount of my future benefits and this just digs the hole that we'll have to get out of even deeper. But, then again, you knew that already.
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  52. That's factually incorrect, the people that are getting these payments are getting it because they're now including income that was never taxed for social security. It moves the date of insolvency for the trust forward because the benefit is coming without the recipients having paid in. This is the result off Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset which were intended to make things a bit fairer in terms of people like your mother not getting benefits that she didn't pay in for.
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  53.  @suzanne9150  And what of the younger people? We're paying in and the system is projected to be insolvent by 2033 with this particular change pushing it forward a bit. They've already raised the retirement age in order to try to keep it solvent, but changes like this are really problematic when you've got people that had other retirement provided in exchange for losing social security for a portion of the work they did. Whereas a bunch of the younger folks just have social security and whatever they may have been able to save in a defined contribution retirement plan.
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  54.  @Athiest_666  Exactly, the money for this is coming from the folks that are in general too young to actually get all the money we were promised from social security. They've already increased the retirement age, and now they're diverting the money to people that have pensions elsewhere. Those provisions were put into place in an effort to keep the trust solvent. Remove that and it just speeds things up.
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  55.  @VitalVampyr  The people who were hit by the WEP and/or GPO were only paying social security taxes on some of their income, not all of it. That's why they get some, but not all of the benefits. The WEP and GPO only cover wages that weren't subject to social security taxation. It's social security benefits that should never have been paid out as there was no tax supporting it. And the GPO in particular only reduces social security by 2/3 of the pension amount. So, they're still getting 1/3 of the normal amount for money they made, but were never taxed for. I do agree that the correct solution here is to eliminate the cap, and I'd add expand it to all forms of income that aren't tax exempt.
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  56. It doesn't though, this is just more stealing from the young to give to the elderly. The money for this is coming out of the pockets of the younger people who are already having to work longer to get their benefits due to the shortfall.
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  57.  @RomaHeart  The money is coming from the payouts that the young were supposed to be collecting. A lot of us don't have pensions, may not have enough in our defined-contribution accounts and now we're looking at losing out on more of our social security due to money being given to people that at least had pensions. It's not ideal, but those limits were part of what was done back in the early '80s to try and avoid having the entire system collapse. I don't doubt that there were reforms needed, but without specifying a funding source for this, it's functionally stealing from young people that are going to need that money when we hit retirement age.
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  58.  @RomaHeart  Most of you folks knew what you were getting into. This has been the case since the early '80s. Those of us that are younger are already seeing the age of retirement for social security increasing, and this will push the fund into insolvency earlier. There were decades to deal with this problem, but folks that are in this boat mostly have other pensions to cover this. Why should the young people who may not have even been born when these policies were enacted give up our benefits because a bunch of boomers suck with money? The young folks got screwed from just about every angle. Housing eats up most of the money we could save for retirement. Pensions mostly don't exist. And even Social Security that's supposed to help keep us from extreme poverty is being cut so that Boomers that had better options than we did, get theirs. And that doesn't even include the debt due to cuts to education for the degrees that young people were told to get in order to have a decent life.
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  59.  @RomaHeart  And that's something to address, just not as the expense of the young folks that are already getting screwed. You made your choices, we didn't choose to be born after the party was over and to be stuck cleaning it up. That was you people.
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  60.  @RobinRockefeller  It's a burden on the rest of us for people that are getting another pension. This was the result of Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset as in, it was an effort to even things out a bit to help keep the program solvent. Adding those folks back in without establishing a funding source just steals from those of us that are young enough not to get ours before the program goes insolvent and starts paying out less than what folks paid in.
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  61. It will push the insolvency date forward a few months. The bigger issue is that it's just another sign that nobody in power has any interest in fixing social security. They'll give more and more out to the retirees in order to get votes, while those of us that are younger may very well not get as much out as we paid in. One of the things I know is that the first step to getting out of any hole is to stop digging. In terms of social security, we've opted to get more efficient digging equipment to keep digging our way out.
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  62. It's because it's bad policy. It didn't come with a funding source and a bunch of the people that are getting the money were never taxed on it. The result is the fund running low on money several months earlier and this just signals to younger workers that the people in charge really and truly don't care to fix the problem. They got theirs, f off you plebs.
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  63. And I don't? This money is coming out of the pockets of the younger folks that are already at risk of not getting all of our money. Perhaps be a bit less selfish and realize that at least you got yours, we may not get ours. The trust is expected to be insolvent by 2033 and this pushes that date a few months earlier.
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  64. They lift it every year. But yep, the cap should be eliminated, and they should include other sources of income along with it. Doing so would make the program solvent for at least another 75 years and help mitigate the issues that we have wit this legislation where the money is being stolen from the future benefits of the young.
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  65. I don't understand why I'm being punished for being too young to get my social security before the trust becomes insolvent.
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