The article in Slate titled CPI Unchained by Matthew Yglesias must be read and comprehended by every American that may possibly be depending on receiving Social Security. While the politicians are claiming that the battle over the fiscal cliff will not involve Social Security, every American citizen will need to remain vigilant.
It is easy to manipulate a program as big as Social Security in forms that are not immediately evident. In his piece Mr. Yglesias details some shenanigans that both Republican and Democratic politicians seem to support. Specifically it involves indexing Social Security to inflation differently.
Mr. Yglesias explains it this way.
The way the index works is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics sends its minions out through the country to find out what things cost. They write this down, and the bureau notes the change over time. Then it weights the change in the price of different things according to how large a share they are in the typical consumer’s overall basket of purchases. An increase in the price of cars is a bigger deal than an increase in the price of violins because the average American spends much more on cars than on violins. The bureau also adds in some fancy math and a bit of hand-waving to try to account for changes in the quality of goods and the arrival of whole new products. The idea is to track the prices of a constant basket of goods over time.
“Chaining” the index means taking a slightly broader view of how the baskets should work in order to account for switching behavior. One reason people buy pork, for example, is that it’s cheaper than beef. But so is chicken. So if pork prices rise, price-sensitive shoppers will probably shift and buy less pork and more chicken. In other words, the price of pork went up, but the overall impact on meat prices is smaller than a naïve look at the movement in pork prices would suggest.
One must realize that over the years this type of indexing progressively make social security recipients poorer and poorer. Not only does it affect current recipients, but future recipients as their starting base would have started from a declined position, than had Social Security kept pace with real inflation.
One should note that Social Security is an entitlement that most have worked for. It is a pact between workers and society. One works during their most productive years knowing that they will receive a living stipend that they paid for based on their level of income.
Whenever America has “wanted” to go to wars to protect mostly the interests of the Plutocracy, mostly middle class, and poor Americans have bled and died to fight these wars. Middle class America has paid for the country’s infrastructure and military thorough regressive taxes, low wages, and the purchase of overpriced products. Middle class America has afforded the wealthy their wealth and security.
Dependable Social Security is the least that must be afforded to American retirees. They have earned it. While it is true that the baby boom will put a strain on Social Security, that strain is temporary and must be amortized over a generation.
Currently the wealthy pays no Social Security taxes over $110,000 of their income. This means the person who makes $110,000 pays the same amount of social security as that person that makes $100 million. This is patently unfair and should be where the solution to the Social Security shortfall starts. While there is a fallacy that there are not enough rich people to make up the shortfall, real arithmetic makes that the lie that generally goes un-refuted in the mainstream med The top 20% of Americans make over 50% of all income, the top 40% almost 75% of the income.
One should not believe that there is some attempt to soak the rich. The very hardworking middle class citizen is simply being made poor by the systematic pilfering through various methods. Indexing Social Security as described above removes the duty of those that have not paid their fair share into it and whose wealth because of compound growth, have extracted more capital from society consummate with their work or deeds. Social Security is an entitlement that must remain unchanged.
LIKE My Facebook Page
Follow @EgbertoWillies
Viewers are encouraged to subscribe and join the conversation for more insightful commentary and to support progressive messages. Together, we can populate the internet with progressive messages that represent the true aspirations of most Americans.
You need some drill on basic English grammar, especially subject-verb agreement and proper use of prepositions:
“Anyone That May Receive Social Security Must Read This” should have read “Anyone who may receive…”
“This means the person who makes $110,000 pays the same amount of social security as that person that makes $100 million.” Interesting; you got it wrong the first time, but right the second time.
“Currently the wealthy pays no Social Security taxes over $110,000 of their income.” In this sentence, “the wealthy” clearly implies plural, so it should be “the wealthy pay no…”
Alas, there are no standards for being a blogger.
Thanks for the “corrections”. I am always amused however of your type. You concentrate on minor grammatical errors one makes in a public forum to show your grammatical skills and ignore the importance of the subject. If your concern was really altruistic you would have sent me an email. You fail at the latter correction given that I wanted the subject seen as a group and not “individuals”. Even your grammatical prowess shows potential to fail at times.
I allowed your message for public view because I am not in this cause to have anyone marvel at my grammatical prowess but to be concerned with the cause. I have always accepted constructive criticism but the tone of your criticism is that of a little man.
If if makes you feel any better, not all his corrections are correct, either. And given the number of mainstream publishers these days who publish books by well-known authors, with inadequate editing and full of far more grievous grammatical errors than yours, you shouldn’t let his comments bother you in the least. The message is indeed more important than the medium, and yours is an important message, well-stated.
Thanks for the kind words helliongoddess.
Yeah, and Boehner needs to use a substance that doesn’t turn his face orange. Argue the story, Brad, not the structure.
Brad and Egberto, please calm down. Brad makes a point indirectly that when someone writes in a public forum, grammatical correctness is important. Errors are a distraction from the message and its clear that your message is important, Egberto. Brad, I think you could have been a little kinder and gentler than a blunt “You need some drill on basic English grammar…”. If you meant to be mean and petty, you succeeded. Egberto, I’m an English as a Second Language teacher and the corrections that Brad provided are indeed correct including the requirement to use the plural regardless of “the wealthy” referring to individuals or a group. Finally, throwing petty insults back only makes one seem as petty as the other.
Jake your point is taken and you are absolutely correct sir.