retirement age

Like a lot of former Obama voters, I've had my issues with the President. Sure, it helped when he sang that Al Green song at the Apollo Theater last week. (Good job, Mr. President! Good pitch and an appropriately understated delivery.)

But in a time of uncertainty people are looking for certitude. In a time of great battles people are looking for strength. They don't just need to hear the words when they listen to their leaders. They need to feel the music.

The State of the Union Address is scheduled for this Tuesday night. The President can go a lot further toward winning over voters who are disappointed, doubtful, or just unenthusiastic, if he chooses an issue that's vitally important to them and offers a clear, strong and unequivocal defense.

Social Security is the ideal issue. It's one of many, according to polls, where both parties are out of step with voters. After seeing their savings, pension plans, and housing values destroyed, people are frightened about their retirement security. They don't hear anybody in Washington offering to protect their benefits.

And to borrow a phrase from Rev. Al, they're tired of being alone. more »

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The Strengthen Social Security Campaign has created a guide evaluating the “friendliness” of six Republican candidates, “Among Republican Candidates, Not a Single Friend of Social Security.” The Campaign has also produced longer individual profiles of more »

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In “What Would FDR Do,” a paper for the Progressive Policy Institute, retirement policy expert Sylvester Schieber not only gets FDR’s legacy wrong—he gets the facts about Social Security wrong. And in exaggerating Social Security’s shortfall to make the case for regressive benefit cuts like raising the retirement, Schieber also gets the meaning of the word “progressive” wrong.

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Appearing on Fox News this morning, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rand Paul (R-KY) acted like their plan to means-test Social Security and raise the retirement age was the most genius thing since sliced bread. But however attractive these options may at first seem, means testing and raising the retirement age are very bad policy. Click here for a comprehensive take-down of raising the retirement age, and here for a rebuttal of means-testing.

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There's been so much noise about what Paul Ryan's budget plan does to Medicare and Medicaid that the damage it does to Social Security has gone unnoticed.

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A few months ago, when Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson released their Social Security proposal, even their worst critics conceded that the plan would improve benefits for the very poorest. According to a new analysis by the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration, however, that just isn't true. The Bowles-Simpson proposal would reduce benefits by as much as $1,107 (16%) for 60% of “Very Low” earners, those workers with average annual earnings of around $10,800. Click here to see a graph of the benefit cuts prepared by Social Security Works, or check it out below.

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The Fiscal Commission released its final report today, and it has once again been caught loading the dice. The Social Security cuts that the Commission unveiled are virtually indistinguishable from the Co-Chairs’ initial proposal a few weeks ago—save for one clever new distortion. The Commission is now vastly inflating the effects of its “hardship exemption” to the increased retirement age for workers in physically demanding jobs, in order to whitewash the cuts its plan would inflict on the working poor.

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