Social Security Benefits Only Going Up 2.3 Percent

AP:

Social Security benefits for nearly 50 million people will rise 2.3 percent starting in January, the smallest increase in four years. The typical retiree will face the challenge of using the extra $24 to cover higher costs for everything from gasoline and food to medical care.

The new cost-of-living figure announced Wednesday by the Social Security Administration means the typical retired worker's benefit check will go from $1,055 per month to $1,079.

The increase is the smallest since a 2.1 percent boost in 2004 and is a full percentage point lower than the 3.3 percent adjustment for 2007. In 2006, benefits rose by 4.1 percent, the biggest gain in 15 years.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[SisterAnn]

Fuji, you are worrying about nothing. The less you make, the larger percentage you get when you retire. The working poor get a larger percentage because if not they would not get enough to survive on, even with a food card.

There is a cap so those who pay in the most don't get back as large a percentage of their wages.

Everyone who works should look at the letter Social Security sends out every year. It tells you the amount to expect when you retire.

Social Security pays about about 40% of your wages after retirement on average, but like I said the higher earners get more like 32% and the lower earners get like 50% of their wages. That would still only be about $6,000 for a minimum age worker.

Social Security is an insurance. We all pay into FICA Federal Insurance Contribution ACT from every pay check. We have an account at the Social Security office with our name on it. The longer we work the more credits we earn. The more we earn the more we get back, with some exceptions.

When you pay life insurance, you don't worry about the benefits your life insurance company pays out, because you know your benefits will be paid when your time comes. That is the way it is with Social Security.

Since 1983 we have been paying extra into FICA to help out the younger workers when the boomers retire. We also added two years to the full retirement age. We knew there would be a problem with the boomers retiring. It is legal for the government to borrow it. We buy bonds so they can. We earn interest on those bonds and they are pure treasury bonds, the safest investment in the world. Bush is not being honest when he calls them useless pieces of paper.

Bush won't be meanstested when he draws his free insurance and half million dollar yearly retirement courtesy of the tax payers.

Remember, when you retire, your expenses stay the same, but you earn less than half of your take home pay.

[olephart]

"Social Security (it's not an insurance program, by the way, but it is most certainly an entitlement program)"

Fuji, I missed this bit of horse puckey. FICA, those payroll deduction things stands for:

Federal Insurance Contributions Act

With the innate relationship between ignorance and bliss, you must be in Heaven.

[PollM]

.
Wow pretty sad milk is $4 a gallon.
Gas at $2.75 per Gallon.
Insurance up
Mortgage payments up.
Tax up.

and politicians still say Inflation is tame. WOW, bloody wow.

Has your economic situation improved or deteriorated in the last year?

---> http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=739.

[GladysKnightsPIP]

BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- The 13-nation euro jumped to a new record on Thursday against the U.S. dollar, breaking through the $1.43 mark after Washington reported a spike in jobless claims -- the latest in a spate of bad economic news from the United States.
art.euro.afp.gi.jpg

The euro was trading at $1.43 for the first time since the common European currency was introduced.

The euro rose to $1.4310 after the U.S. Labor Department reported that applications for jobless benefits hit 337,000 last week -- up 28,000 from the week before and the biggest one-week surge since claims jumped 42,000 in the week of February 10.

The euro settled back slightly to $1.4283 -- still up almost a U.S. cent from the $1.4186 it bought in late New York trading on Wednesday, and higher than its previous record of $1.4282 set October 1.

The jobless increase was more than four times the gain of 6,000 that economists had been expecting and was taken as a possible sign that the labor market is starting to weaken under the impact of a severe downturn in housing and the credit crisis that jolted financial markets i

[olephart]

"Talk about your revisionism. There's no way SS is ahead. It's a pay as you go system"

Fuji, your ignorance is overwhelming. Social Security ran a 225 billion dollar SURPLUS in fiscal 2007. It has been running a SURPLUS for over 25 years. The accumulated SURPLUS is over two trillion dollars held in Treasury Bonds, drawing interest just like all bonds. It is invested CONSERVATIVELY. Since Reagan's time, each Administration has spent the Social Security SURPLUSS and put IOUs (Treasury Bonds) in a file cabinet.

[billu]

Yeah you are right but those bonds are just a promise to pay with current ss receipts. The bonds are funny money there is no pile of cash earmarked for SS. It's pay as you go.

[andyboy]

Hey milk's $5/gallon but inflation sure is low! How does Bush do it?

I was able to buy a whole egg for only a dollar the other day. Isn't this economy wonderful? Inflation is so low. You wonder how they keep it so low sometimes.

Could it be that they don't count the rise in things that go up the most? No. The wonderful Boosh administration would never lie. I'm sorry. That just helped the terrorists. Their going to invest in Dairy now and get rich and buy a suitcase nuke.

Signed, Firaxis and Fuj

[Fuji]

Let me put this in a way you can understand, andyboy:

U r a re-tard

[andyboy]

I love it when you dissemble.

Retard is a politically incorrect term. It's considered offensive. You should say mentally challenged. There is no such thing as a re-tard.

Why did you hyphenate?

I have to go there's a sale on Whiska's.

Then I'm going to splurge and buy a pack of non-stick chewing gum.

[Doug]

You can blame global warming alarmists for that. Ethanol has tripled the price of corn. Starving people in the third world and driving the prices of meat and dairy products.

[andyboy]

As long as your from the government you can tell helpless mopes like TimmySlagle anything.

Oh goody gumdrops inflation was only 2.3% this past year. Yipee! This only reinforces my general feeling of wonderfullness when I think about the Bush team and the great job their doing with the economy.

I mean considering all the terrorism and all.

[TimmySlagle]

If it's no big deal, then why did the authors of this article have to hide it under Social Security.

The truth that isn't being reported here, is that the SS increase is so low, because INFLATION is so low.

It was 4% last year because INFLATION was 4%.

The Social Security rate has nothing to do with the President, unless the President gets credit for the inflation rate.

[andyboy]

Pretty soon these crazy liberals wil be advocating healthcare for children instead of war on muslims. Oh the horror!

[andyboy]

Fuji is a liar:

He says people who put in $30k can get $150k out. But how many do?

But he doesn't mention that in an actuarial sense if a man retires at age 65 yrs he's usually dead within 2 years. Total outlay in SS benefits maybe 25K.

[Fuji]

Because you knuckleheads keep missing my argument, let me lay it out one more time:

Graywolf wrote:
The more you earn, the more Social Security pays out to you.

Fuji: THIS, Graywolf, is the heart of the problem. If I earn $100,000 a year until retirement, how much will social security pay me? Plenty more than the person who earned $25,000 a year. Yet who needs the money more?

[ajax2]

Fuji, "The more you earn, the more Social Security pays out to you."
Not quite honest there is a max.

[Fuji]

Didn't say there wasn't one, fool.

[Fuji]

Graywolf wrote:

To collect you must have worked a specified number of quarters and your retirement amount is based on your earnings. The more you earn, the more Social Security pays out to you.

THIS IS THE PROBLEM, FOLKS. The more you earn, the more you get out of Social Security. How can that seem just to your pointy little liberal minds? If an elderly lady made $25,000 a year until retirement, why is receiving less aid than the rich person who made $125,000?

[Graywolf48]

So, let me see if I understand what you are saying or advocating. If I make $100,000 a year and pay 15% of that into Social Security and you make $25,000 a year and pay 15% of that into Social Security, when we both retire at age 65 or 70, you should collect a bigger benefit check than me because, well, you need it more? What this sounds like to me is a doctrine of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." or something along that line. If that is correct, if that is what you mean, then we must all stand back from our computers because hundreds if not thousands of conservative heads are about to explode with a thunderclap roar. What you appear to be advocating then Fuji,is, oh my God, should I risk saying the word without fear of Right Wing Republican hordes wielding pitchforks and torches appearing at my door? What you appear to be advocating is...COMMUNISM! Or at the very least, some sort of Socialism, which is to the Conservative Republican mind Communism with a small penis. Am I close?

[TimmySlagle]

Liberal spin from "balanced" journalists.

Nowhere is it mentioned that 2.3% is the inflation rate over the past twelve months.

Which means that the INFLATION rate right now is the lowest it has been in four years. But gee, that would be good economic news, that would reflect welll on the curremt occupant of the White House.

So instead, they report the news in a negative light, to scare senior citizens, and make the President appear cold and heartless.

And you liberals all lap it up.

[Firaxis]

A large number of today's workers have 401k plans and a few years ago the age was lowered to 65 to be able to receive full benefits while still working. That age is now being incrementally raised to 67. But these days, unless you are a construction worker or other type of manual labor, still being able to be a productive worker at 67 is more common than not.

[Firaxis]

I'm not disparaging those doing manual labor. It just that it's physically demanding work. Not like an office worker or sales person.

[andyboy]

Thanks for that Wikipedia moment. Could you tell us more information that everyone already knows as if it was a newsflash?

Just picture us all as young children who idolize you and who are gathered around you sitting rapt in the lotus position while you read off statistics and summaries.

Now children many people have strange things called 401k's those are investment programs with regular payroll deductions which are then invested......Children. Children? Wake up children!

Your the stupidest blogger ever dude and I have a hunch Fuji is you too. Both of your personalities suck if you are.

[andyboy]

Timmy laps up this bullshit inflation index as if it's the real deal doesn't he?

Yeah Timmy sure. I'm only paying 2.3% more for the things I buy. Right.

Don't tell me your getting ready to protect Christmas again this year too.

Please lie to me my name is Timmy I love the New Nighted States of Amernica. What a hapless rube you are. Dolt.

[TimmySlagle]

I believe the inflation rate is calculated by the Congressional Budget Office.

The numbers may be fictional, but it's CONGRESSional Budget Office fiction.

And if you need to point the blame for this meager raise, point it at the CBO.

[GladysKnightsPIP]

I live in a country where CEO's pay up to 68 percent tax rate and yet they drive Ferraris, have huge yachts and many luxury homes. I don't hear them bitch about it.

And their employees can afford to drive Mercedes and BMWs.

[Fuji]

Yes, but you live in fairytale world where hardly anyone works, everyone relies on the US to defend them when the S hits the fan, and the population is supported only by an influx of muhadjadeen.

[GladysKnightsPIP]

You are perhaps the most uninformed idiot I have ever seen.

Our unemployment is actually LOWER than yours because we don't cook the books like you liars and cheaters.

BTW, we don't need your protection. And for the last time, shithead, come here and see how many Muslims there are..........a lot less than you think. IN fact, wife and I were at the pool today and all I could see was shitloads of little blond hair blue eyed rugrats.

Sheeeesh, Fuji, are you really proud to a gullible idiot?

[andyboy]

The hallucinagens are really kicking in today.

Oh my God they've invaded Kuwait! Quick send the troops! I know it would be un-American to buy Oil from Saddam he's a dictator.

We must protect Kuwait at all costs it's the prime directive Fuji!

Oh my God everywhere I look it's muhadjadeen! What happened to the Billions of Christians?

You say everyone left the Church due to all the Homo/Pedophiles? Oh the humanity!

What will we do Fuji? How fast can we kill say 1.2 billion Muslims?

[Ramirez]

Heritage Foundation, Economic Freedom Index:


"The Netherlands has high income tax rates and moderate corporate tax rates. The top income tax rate is 52 percent, and the top corporate tax rate is 29.6 percent, which it is expected will be reduced to 29.1 percent in January 2007. Other taxes include a value-added tax (VAT), a tax on insurance contracts, and a real estate tax. In the most recent year, overall tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was 39.3 percent."

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=netherlands

[GladysKnightsPIP]

I figured it out once,,,,,when I added up all the little nickel and dime taxes I paid in the USA that it all added up to the same as here.

And all prices here are with VAT included so there isn't this silly bullshit about paying after the total bill. And prices on most things are STILL cheaper than in the USA.

You can buy a Dell laptop fully loaded in the SUPERMARKET here for about 600 Euros.

[ajax2]

Anyone who believes that inflation is up 2.3 percent also believes GW Bush is an avid reader. Liars go to great pains to come to that figure. SS funds would be the only surplus we have if put off budget.

[Prolix247]

I agree ajax, they do not count food or fuel in the inflation ratings. Both have increased 100% since GWB took office.

[GladysKnightsPIP]

Stop blowing Trillions on killing people who are innocent and start taking care of your country.

Its turning into a shithole day by day.