[ad_1]
To raise Social Security’s retirement age or not — that was the question, and the only two Republican presidential candidates at CNN’s debate on Wednesday did not agree on the answer.
Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis said, at least for the time being, he would not raise the retirement age for Social Security, while Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor, said she would for younger constituents. “We have to keep our promises to seniors, but we also can’t keep our heads in the sand,” she said.
Social Security is on a path toward insolvency. If nothing is done to fix the problem, the trust funds that support the program are expected to run out of money in about a decade, at which point beneficiaries will see a cut to their checks every month. Congress has never let Social Security falter, but legislators have yet to decide on how to repair the program. Potential solutions include increasing the retirement age, raising taxes, eliminating the income cap for high-earning individuals or a combination of those and other proposals.
The current Full Retirement Age, or FRA, is 67 for people born in 1960 and later. The last time the FRA was raised was in 1983, from 65 to 67, which resulted in a 13% benefit cut. Moving the FRA from 67 to 70, as some have proposed in recent years, would “effectively cut currently scheduled benefits by nearly 20%,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
When beneficiaries claim Social Security benefits before their FRA, they receive a permanently reduced benefit. Raising the age could make those cuts feel even deeper.
Lower- and middle-income individuals would be worse off than their higher-earning counterparts, partly because they rely on Social Security more heavily, and also because they have not see the same life expectancy increases as those who have higher incomes, the CBPP said.
This isn’t the first time Haley has made her pitch to reform the Social Security program. Under Haley’s proposal, younger Americans, such as those in their 20s, would have a higher retirement age, while older Americans near claiming age would see no change made. During an event in New Hampshire in September, Haley said the program would remain the same for people in their 40s and beyond.
Haley also noted DeSantis has voted to increase the retirement age for Social Security in the past. The Florida governor has voted for proposals that included changes to Medicare and Social Security eligibility and full retirement ages, respectively, in the early 2010s, but has said in more recent times his position “had shifted,” according to Factcheck.org.
Also see: Life expectancy in the U.S. has declined. What does that mean for your retirement?
During the debate on Wednesday, DeSantis said now is not the time to make any changes to the retirement age for Social Security.
“The problem is, now, life expectancy is going down, so I don’t see how you can raise the retirement age when life expectancy is collapsing,” he said. The Florida governor also said the cost of living, including prices for groceries and rent, is “through the roof,” and the cost-of-living adjustment under Social Security isn’t enough to cover those increases. “I’m not going to mess with seniors’ benefits.”
To that, Haley argued Florida is one of the hot spots for inflation. When asked what the new retirement age would be or if workers in their 20s should plan on working until they’re 70, the former governor did not have a specific answer, but did say they should expect an increase in the age.
“We have to start looking at how to get out of this,” she said during the debate. “We want to make sure everyone was promised, gets it, but we also want to make sure our kids have something when they get it too.”
[ad_2]
Source link
