LET'S LOOK AT SOCIAL SECURITY FACTS!

 SEVENTY FIVE YEARS OF SOCIAL SECURITY

“LET'S LOOK AT SOCIAL SECURITY  FACTS”

First a Belated  75^th Birthday Party!

Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, stated in a recent column in the New York Time,  that the 75^th birthday in 2010 of  Social Security  “should have been a joyous occasion, a time to celebrate a program that has brought dignity and decency to the lives of older Americans.”     Today, some 53 million Americans  have a good reason to celebrate what President Franklin D. Roosevelt and those in Congress and the American public who supported this critical social security legislation in 1935.   However, the celebratory candles are in danger of being snuffed out by opponents such as former Republican Senator Alan Simpson who referred to Social Security  as   “ a milk cow with 310 tits!”     and  the American Association of Retired Persons  as “greedy geezers of America.”     I wonder if Simpson is collecting his  overly generous federal pension package or if those eligible  Simpson  family members have forfeited  their Social Security benefits?   Among those joining Simpson in weaning away the 310 million Americans from the Social Security  milk cow is  his soul mate, Wall Street billionaire, Pete Peterson.  He has committed $1 billion  to promote his rants about shrinking the sole retirement system available to millions of American working people and other economically disadvantaged who qualify for benefits.  His mantra like many others in the financial world is “Let them invest in the Stock Market!”  However, before we scuttle Social Security for the benefit of the “greedy geezers of Wall Street” let us  review some Social Security facts.

Do you know that Social Security currently:

• Pays benefits to roughly 53 million Americans
• Covers 6.5 million children annually from the Social Security benefits program.                                                                                               
• Covers spouses and children of workers who have died or have become disabled.
• Covers grandparents raising grandchildren.
• Covers severely disabled children.
• Covers families of fallen service members.
• Covers  25%  of single or widowed Americans over 65  whose total income is derived from Social Security

(Many of the above would be living in poverty without Social Security assistance. 49% of workers 55 years and older report less than $50,000 saved for their retirement excluding Social Security retirement benefits)

Current financial status of Social Security.  (It is not broke!)

• The Trust Fund has $2.5 trillion in United States government bonds that are sufficient  to keep the program solvent for the next three decades without any meddling by Congress!
• The Social Security Trust Fund will run a surplus until 2027 when it will accumulate $5.5 trillion.
• If no action is taken by Congress, the Trust Fund will begin to withdraw its cash out of the U.S. Treasury obligations it holds that will let it pay all outstanding benefits until 2041 based on the annual 2010 Trustees’ Report.
• Wage earners pay 6.2% on their salaries until $106,800 is reached which amounts to $6,622 annually. Employers match the worker’s contribution.  Under this wage cap system, those making the most money stop paying into Social Security when their salaries reach $106,800. 
• In 1983, President Reagan and  the GOP Congress increased Social Security taxes  on the working class well above the needed revenues to support projected retirement data.   The plan raised in 2007, $175 billion more than the program spent in that year alone.
• Today’s retiring workers have already paid for their benefits because they have paid a higher payroll taxes for the past twenty-five years thanks to the 1983 meddling by President Reagan and his GOP Congress members.
• Social Security Trust Fund has had a surplus revenue annually since the early 1980’s until 2010 & 2011 when high unemployment reduces payroll collection but did not endanger benefits.  Any shortfall can be covered by the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Social Security  expects contributions again to support benefits from 2012 to 2041.

SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND OWNED BY AMERICAN WORKERS

The Trust Fund does not belong to the federal government but to the American workers who have paid their FICA taxes all their working lives.

• The monthly benefits belong to the American worker not the U.S. Treasury
• or any branch of government.
•  In the next ten – twelve years,  the U. S. Treasury will have to begin paying back  the trillions  it has borrowed from Social Security Trust Fund – the American workers’ money.  The surplus funds and all future revenues are  placed in U.S. Treasury securities.
•  The U.S. Government each year borrows Social Security surplus( about $200 billion annually) to operate the government programs.   
•  The Social Security Administration consists of   three members appointed from the president’s cabinet and two members representing the public sector Social Security Commissioner.
•  The Social Security Administration  and Trustees release a comprehensive report annually describing the financial status of the program and its services to the American  people. 

ATTACKS ON SOCIAL SECURITY

• IT IS NOT TRUE THAT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS COLLECT SOCIAL SECURITY:  The estimated 12 million illegal immigration  living and working in America pay into the Social Security system through the FICA tax.  The  Social Security Administration receives millions of W-2  earning reports with  incorrect Social Security numbers and names. The FICA taxes are  placed in an “EARNING SUSPENSE FILE”   It is estimated that the FICA taxes paid by illegal workers subsidize the Social Security system as much as 10% of its annual surplus.   Illegals will not be able to collect any of the amount they have paid in because of false credentials submitted to the Social Security Administration.  Undocumented workers pay FICA taxes during their working lives in the United States but will not collect benefits later.
•  President George W. Bush  in 2005 proposed  to borrow $2 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund to privatize the system.   President Bush rationale was that the system would cost less in five or six decades as a result of privatization.  We just have to reflect on the current real estate market and our economic recession and the colossal failure of the private pension system during the financial turmoil of these last few years.  Social Security’s seventy-five year track record  versus  the economic fluctuations of  Wall Street  is a no-brainer except for the voracious greed of the financial sector.  
• Political ideologues the right and the anti – Social Security  Republican Party  cannot accept the fact that a government program can be a solution and not the problem.
• The anti- Social Security coalition consisting of almost all Republicans  in Congress and a few Democrats want to replace the Social Security system  with a program that would invest the American wage earners’ Social security taxes in global markets-weighted index of stocks, bonds and real estate. 

Fortunately, the American public knows better than to have the birthday candles snuffed out of the long-lived 75 year-old Social Security Program.