Senator Bernie Sanders Report Warns Nearly Half of Older Americans 'Have No Retirement Savings'
Sanders Report Warns Nearly Half of Older Americans 'Have No Retirement Savings'
Regular Americans are struggling to survive in a nightmare dystopia. News and weather at 11.
Not surprising that a lot of boomers got left behind. The American system is designed to grind everyone to zero with overwhelming debt to keep everyone working at nonliving wages.
Making sure income can’t match debts is a form of wage slavery. Company towns with mines back in the day. This current “economy” is that bullshit on steroids.
Marketing and the media are also to blame. We're constantly bombarded by advertising and people telling us that what we have isn't enough. We're so status conscious and aware if how much is out there that they have us chasing dreams straight into massive debt.
I'm in my 50s with no savings. It isn't lifestyle or marketing driven though. I just have had very few years where we had any extra. Also three teenagers and the price of food is killing me, cost of cars too. It's just surviving that's gutting me.
Companies spend millions of dollars to influence your behavior and have mountains of studies to prove that it works, but it's your fault if you're swayed by advertising.
Those its "my money and I need it now!" commercials.....devious now that a lot of folks dont have anything saved.
For some fucked up reason SS tax is only up to something like $165k income. So a textbook regressive tax. Ridiculous. Don't put a limit on it. There. The shit is funded until climate change creates starvation and mass human migrations of such size that there is a break down the social structure.
Aktchually.... SS benefits are pretty progressive. Those with lower lifetime earnings will see a much higher income replacement percentage than higher earners up to that $165k-ish limit.
Lifting the taxable income cap would not fully eliminate the funding gap. We'd also have to pay out more to those higher earners too. If we didn't, it would change SS from insurance to wellfare. And that would lead to (Republican) lobbiests fighting even harder to privatize, limit, or end SS.
Benefits may be progressive but the funding is regressive. Actually enduring the prerequisite significantly harder life? Also regressive.
Lifting the cap would increase funding.
It is welfare regardless, but lifting the cap and then paying the extra revenue out to people who don’t need it would not do much, so good call there.
We are perfectly capable of taking care of one another, so technical explanations of why people actually have to suffer because yacht construction stimulates GDP are inherently suspect.
Plus don’t forget there are special rules for taxing social security benefits, where most recipients are not taxed but as your income increases, more of your benefits are subject to income tax. Also quite progressive.
That's because DEMOCRATS keep trying to SAVE Social Security! Why can't we just GIVE that money to BILLIONAIRES instead like REPUBLICANS want to do?
Exactly BigMacHole@lemm.ee Musk can't give us a share of his prosperity if the guberment keeps taking the money from him /s
Sounds like they should cut back on those $5 Metamucils, and make their own fiber at home.
They can just eat the weeds growing between the cracks of the sidewalk, what's the problem?
I'm going to take this opportunity to recommend that no one scrimp and get the budget fiber. It's not worth it bro.
Gotta get those high quality gains to lift more than the McVeigh's
I put money into my 401k for decades only to find out I had enough to cover two months of rent. Shits fucked.
Nope. Company matching and everything.
You can doubt all you want, but I'm the one sitting here without anything to show for being in the workforce my whole life.
You seem to be in complete disbelief that other people have a hard time, questioning anyone that relays 401k does almost nothing for them. It must be nice for you to be in a better position, a huge portion of the population is not though.
When the magic money generation machine goes wrong.
I'm Only 30 but I have no plans for retirement savings. How can I when half my paycheck goes to a roof over my head and a quarter goes to taxes and another quarter goes to food, clothes, and other necessities?
By the time I'm fifty it will probably be 60% to a roof, 30% to taxes and 10% to food and clothes.
It's time for a revolution because it looks like most of the population's in the same boat. The war between the super rich and everyone else has been fought and we lost. They're leaving us with two options: revolution or die starving on the streets.
You may not have much money, but you still have a huge amount of time you can invest. You only need to figure out a few percent of your income, much smaller than taxes, rent, or food, then let time do the work for you. Use the power of compounding returns
Which only works if there are no major medical expenses or other disasters.
I'm GenX, been working since I was a teenager. And since I was a teen I always figured I'd have to work until I die. It still seems that way today.
This is exactly why state pensions are the norm in Europe, and I think many other places around the world.
Here in Portugal, your taxes accumulate pension credit similar to social security in the US, but when you retire you receive around 80% of your highest salary over your career, instead of a few hundred dollars or whatever from American social security.
I mean, social security will help you get enough medicine as long as only take 1/4 of the prescribed amount and there's lots of fancy cat food out there...you can eat like a rich person's pet for only $2-$3 a can!
On the bright side, between the too-poor-to-retire elderly and kids, we think we can fill all the open jobs created by covid deaths without having to let any immigrants in.
On an unrelated note, we're on track to invent the "trillionaire" within the next decade. If that's not innovation, I don't know what is.
Pensions in the U.S. were largely replaced with 401k's. Now we have hedge funds playing the stock market with trillions.
In the UK we do similar.
We accumulate pension credit too, but then we get a maximum amount of about £10,500 a year assuming you paid tax for the full 35 years.
Didn't/couldn't save for retirement.
Blames the gays and immigrants.
I appreciate seeing this information but lines like this will dissuade non believers. "while 1 in people are fighting to survive on less than $15,000 annually."
The editor or whomever submitted the article missed it during revisions.
I assume they meant to say 1 in 10?
Edit: updated typo lives to lines
Let them strap boots.
The report offers two main solutions to the retirement crisis: expanding and strengthening Social Security—"the most successful government program in our nation's history"
Social Security has each generation depend on the next generation paying for its retirement. That's kind of what happened historically, when kids took care of aging parents. Problem is that everyone else's kids pay for your retirement, which means that your incentive to do the work of raising kids goes away; Social Security puts the load on people who have kids to turn them into the next generation of productive workers. It's great if you never raise kids, but it's a pretty raw deal if you do raise kids.
It also deals poorly with scenarios where the population pyramid inverts -- like, birth rates fall off and such. Then suddenly instead of lots of kids supporting a few older people's retirement, you have a lot of retirees expecting a few younger people to pay for their retirement.
I'd kinda favor 401(k)s or something more like that; that has each generation fund its own retirement, rather than relying on the next. That way, the payments in are proportional to the size of the population cohort, rather than proportional to the size of some other population cohort (like, the next generation).
I'd kinda favor 401(k)s or something more like that
I'd rather not have to rely on market gambling to survive in my old age. Many people probably agreed with you until about 2008, when a LOT of retirees lost most of their retirement money during the recession and a lot of really old people went back to work. It was pretty bad, and I'll never forget it.
Not that it matters. I can barely afford to live week to week now, let alone save money for retirement. I'll probably just die, I guess. 🤷♀️
Social Security has each generation depend on the next generation paying for its retirement.
This is a true statement but misleading.
Social Security deductions from worker's paychecks just go into the general government coffers, not specific savings for Social Security recipients. The government spends this regularly, and separately takes part of the money out of the general coffers and pays today's Social Security recipients. For decades the government has spent the Social Security surplus on non-Social Security stuff. If it hadn't, there would be plenty of money in the Social Security "savings account" without having to reduce benefits to future Social Security recipients.
Al Gore was going to set this up in the year 2000. Instead Florida couldn't count votes cast properly and we had President George W. Bush.
Instead Florida couldn’t count votes cast properly
Properly depending on whose side you were on.
I would say it was properly done for its intended purpose. Unfortunately.
SS is insurance you cannot outlive. 401K’s only work for the middle class and up that are able to out save living and medical costs. They are not the same thing and do not work as a replacement.
Exactly. Problem is no one educates anyone on that and instead just push for you to put more into 401k
Problem is that everyone else’s kids pay for your retirement, which means that your incentive to do the work of raising kids goes away; Social Security puts the load on people who have kids to turn them into the next generation of productive workers. It’s great if you never raise kids, but it’s a pretty raw deal if you do raise kids.
I think it more closely follows social insurance than simply asking for a handout from everyone else's kids. Afterall, you are paying into it until you are eligible, and when you are eligible, a person just one year younger than you is supporting you. Saying that it's just "kids" paying into it makes it seem like we all stop paying into Social Security when we turn 25. I agree that the onus falls to the next generation in so much that it is their burden to pay into, but making it seem like we are forcing them into baby farms to push out kids to pay for our retirement is a bit dramatic. The population would have to take a pretty drastic nosedive over one generation to cause the system to collapse for the current retired generation, and the population numbers of the US don't support that line of logic.
The biggest issue that we are running into with Social Security is the Wage Base Limit that stops the payment of Social Security tax after you are taxed a certain amount. It adjusts for inflation each year, which is great, but it doesn't adjust for the disparity in wealth. Sure, the average person makes a certain amount per year, but that average doesn't mean anything anymore when it's the smallest percentage of earners in America. There are too many that don't pay up to the cap due to their low wage, and too many that make more than the cap and don't pay any more, and so we are left with a shrinking bank of fund as the wealth disparity increases each year. If we want to fix Social Security, we don't need to set up "generation funds", we need to abolish the Wage Base Limit and force everyone to pay in the 6.8% they owe, instead of just relying on the bottom 60% of Americans to do what they can.
As far as 401(k) goes, those are dependant on a volatile market, and often struggle to meet inflation, making them just slightly better than hiding your money in a mattress, but if you hide it in your mattress you don't have to pay a fee if there is a medical emergency you needs the funds for. 401(k) is great for people with true disposable income in the excess of thousands a month, but there aren't enough of those people around anymore, and they aren't the ones that will rely on Social Security, anyway.
I think it more closely follows social insurance than simply asking for a handout from everyone else’s kids. Afterall, you are paying into it until you are eligible, and when you are eligible, a person just one year younger than you is supporting you. Saying that it’s just “kids” paying into it makes it seem like we all stop paying into Social Security when we turn 25. I
I think more importantly, it suggests having children is necessary. And it is not. I say that as a loving parent.
While I also think the wage cap should be lifted, it won’t have as big an effect as you expect. Remember ss is somewhat progressive (higher income get less percentage return), ss benefits on the high end are subject to income tax, and that benefits are also capped to match the wage cap. High earners are putting in more for less getting back, at least to some extent
If you raise the wage cap, there’s an argument the benefits should increase for higher earners as well. Remember this is not welfare, it’s meant to be a social insurance program, which has implications
I have enough to last 8 months after working 45 years and having a heart attack and having to spend my life savings on medical bills.
I am so so sorry you are going through that.
It’s unclear why people took exception to that question. Retirement is commonly tied to your type of employment.
What's that matter? Have you retired?
Did you have retirement savings before the heat attack? How about insurance with a max you’d have to pay?