“CBO estimates that in fiscal year 2012, spending for Social Security totaled $773 billion, equal to about 5 percent of gross domestic product and one-fifth of federal spending. As more members of the baby-boom generation retire and the U.S. population grows older in the coming decades, Social Security outlays are projected to grow more rapidly than the economy and more rapidly than the program’s dedicated tax revenues.

Over the next 10 years, outlays will exceed dedicated tax revenues by about 10 percent, on average. That gap will grow larger in the 2020s, and by 2030, Social Security outlays will be about 6 percent of gross domestic product and will exceed dedicated tax revenues by about 20 percent. As a result, under current law, resources available to the Social Security program will become insufficient to pay full benefits in about 20 years, CBO projects.

Today CBO released The 2012 Long-Term Projections for Social Security: Additional Information, which expands upon CBO’s projections of the Social Security program’s finances that were included in CBO’s The 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook, published in June.”

The average monthly social security benefit to retirees is $1,170. But still, most people opt to start collecting it at viagra blindness age 62 even though they will get a reduced benefit, rather than wait until they are 66. But the viagra 200mg argument around raising social security retirement age is about life expectancy. Even simple facts, like life expectancy, turn out not to be simple once you start getting into the details, according to an column by Ezra Klein, September 03, 2010 “Start with the basic rationale for raising the retirement age. Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisc.) has argued that when Social Security was signed into law, the retirement age was 65 and life expectancy was 63. “The numbers added up pretty well back then,” he said on Fox News. But that’s misleading. That figure was buy cialis online driven by high infant mortality. If you were a white male who’d made it to age 60 in 1935, you could expect 15 more years going forward. If you’re a white male who lives to 60 today, you can expect 20 more years going forward.” “Moreover, those averages conceal a lot of inequality. In 1972, a 60-year-old male worker who made less than the median income had a life expectancy of 78 years. By 2001, he had a life expectancy of 80 cialisonline-storeedtop.com years. Meanwhile, workers in the top half of the income distribution shot to 85 years from 79. Insofar as pharmacycanada-rxedtop the argument for raising the retirement age is that “Social generic viagra online Security beneficiaries live a lot generic cialis online longer today than they did in 1935,” it should be restated as: “Social Security beneficiaries tend to live somewhat longer today than they did in 1935, and that’s much more true of rich beneficiaries than poor beneficiaries.” by Ezra KleinSeptember 03, 2010 http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/03/we-should-leave-social-security-alone.html

The current media hype is that Social Security is on the brink of bankruptcy.  Why? Because the economic recession has resulted in reduced revenue for social security this year and more people than expected opted to collect social security.

“CBO projects that revenues from payroll taxes credited to the trust funds will be $12 billion lower in 2010 than in 2009, while benefit payments will be $37 billion higher. This year, for the first time since the Social Security reforms of the early 1980s, benefit payments from the trust funds will exceed the trust funds’ receipts from the public (which consist mostly of revenues from payroll taxes and exclude interest on Treasury securities held by the trust funds).”

However, more money has been collected for social security than spent over time and CBO states that Social Security –also known as the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund– had “a balance of $2.3 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2009; CBO estimates that the OASI trust fund will continue to maintain a positive balance for more than 30 years.”  This means that that there will be enough money to meet obligations until at least 2040. Continue reading »