Lower retirement age

[RGacky3]

Thats it, lower the retirement age, drop the work week, just those 2 things alone would do wonders for the American economy. 2 simple pieces of legislation would put a lot of people out of the labor market, and allow many more people into the labor market, meaning those people would be paying taxes.

Its just an example of a very simple thing that could be done to help the economy tremendously but no one in washington even suggests.

[ComradeMan]

Thats it, lower the retirement age, drop the work week, just those 2 things alone would do wonders for the American economy. 2 simple pieces of legislation would put a lot of people out of the labor market, and allow many more people into the labor market, meaning those people would be paying taxes.

Its just an example of a very simple thing that could be done to help the economy tremendously but no one in washington even suggests.

Do US citizens have state pensions as well as private pensions? Because if you have more pensioners someone has to pick up the bill. How would it balance out? Could you outline how it works and what the statistics are please?

[RGacky3]

Some have private pensions as well, some only have private pensions. Right now social security is running a surplus, and you can make that surplus solvant forever if you take off the cap (right now over a certain amount of money I think 250,000, you don't pay into social security.)

[Tommy4ever]

Yeah .... but those people who just retired need their pensions paid and in reality the problem of states being unable to pay pensions (and old people simply not having enough money to survive on) is a greater problem than unemployment in the Western world.

So you've managed to cure one problem by making a more dangerous problem - financial apocalypse for governments and pension funds as well as mass poverty amongst the elderly. So ....

Keep looking for ideas people.

[RGacky3]

Social security is a federal program (not a state program) WITH A SURPLUS, plus you get more people working you have more money comming in to social security, and you take off the cap you have even more meaning that you can even raise benefits.

Many economists have proposed this as an easy economic lift.

[RichardAWilson]

The FICA Cap is $108,600!

The problem with SS is how you run the projections. Nobody knows how much (or little) the economy will grow between now and 2050. If it grew in line with the historical average, the entire "deficit" would disappear.

The difference between 2% annualized growth and 3% annualized growth over 4 decades can mean a multi-trillion dollar difference in tax revenue vs. projected spending.

Removing the FICA Cap that benefits the super-rich, indexing new SS Benefits with the CPI instead of the AWI and growing the economy (slightly) faster than the projected rate would leave SS with a surplus even beyond 2070.

http://www.sscommonsense.org/SimIntro.html

Change the Economic Growth Assumption and see the difference.

I agree that the Age (for Full SS Eligibility) should be reduced from 65 to around 60.

Furthermore, when the French instituted a 35-hour workweek, their businesses were forced to create over 270,000 private sector jobs. For the United States, such a law would translate into between 1.5 and 2 million jobs.

[RGacky3]

The problem with SS is how you run the projections. Nobody knows how much (or little) the economy will grow between now and 2050. If it grew in line with the historical average, the entire "deficit" would disappear.


Sure, but lowering the retirement age would definately grow to consumer based and lessen unemployment which would absolutely stimulate the economy.

Not only that but removing the cap would essencially mean higher taxes on the super rich, which would disincentivise (be it slightly) high compensation and incentivise re-investment into the company.


Change the Economic Growth Assumption and see the difference.

I agree that the Age (for Full SS Eligibility) should be reduced from 65 to around 60.

Furthermore, when the French instituted a 35-hour workweek, their businesses were forced to create over 270,000 private sector jobs. For the United States, such a law would translate into between 1.5 and 2 million jobs.

Absolutely the French model was a success, more jobs, more money paid into taxes, more into SS, more consumer spending more stimulated economy.

Its just 2 slight tweaks to the law and it would help a ton, yet watching the mainstream news you'd think fixing the economy was rocket science and washing is just doing the best they can.

[RichardAWilson]

Well, I suppose they are.... to a degree. The Republicans would never go for such a program and neither would most Democrats. (After all, the rich finance our campaigns) They couldn't even agree to McCain's watered down Campaign Finance Law. Wall Street dictates what Washington does and doesn't do. As for the media - Industrial conglomerates own our media. There aren't even that many newspapers left in the country that aren't owned by conglomerates. Call it freedom of speech for the New York Stock Exchange. Unfortunately, the American public is too uneducated, too apolitical and too concerned with Reality TV - Jerry Springer, Hoarders, Intervention and Cheaters - to care about what's going on in Washington. After all, why would you care when the Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same damn coin? Even union members have stopped voting. Why vote for the Party that gave you NAFTA and "Made in China?" Meanwhile, we can't have a damn viable Socialist / Labor Party because the unions are corporate owned and left-wingers and progressives here are harder to unite than right-winged conservatives. Plus, even if we did have a viable Socialist Party, the media would ignore it. Where we do have European-style Socialists, they're often affiliated with the Democratic Party (like Dennis Kucinich), or they run on their own (Bernie Sanders), or they run with a Party that's known more for their environmental views than their social and economic views (Ralph Nader) - and even then, they're ignored by the media (or) they're blamed by the media for "stealing" votes from the Democrats ("Gore lost the election because of Nader") Things will have to get seriously bad in this country before a workingman's party emerges that can win popular backing.... Damn, you know something is out of line when the Communist Party USA supports the Democratic Party! WTF? The French would be worried if their CP actively backed the SP's candidate over running their own. Not here in America.... We have a CP that actively supports Republican Lite. That's like Libertarians backing a Nazi Party. I call that one very phucking confused Party.

http://peoplesworld.org/does-it-matter-which-party-wins/

Ok, I'm done *****ing

[alphshuffel]

I think that this is not a solution of the economic problem. America should now focus only at its problem and leave the rest of the world on its faith. We should first solve our problem and get our economy back and make it strong and then see toward other world again.

[RichardAWilson]

I don't think it's THE solution, but it is one idea --- that should be part of a solution. Considering SS can easily be fixed (like I said, if economic growth does follow the historical growth rate, which can be attained with moderate reform), most of the long-term projected "deficit" will disappear.... Throw in taxing the super-rich and adjusting SS Benefits with the CPI vs the AWI and you have substantial surpluses between now and 2050. More than enough to reduce the retirement age from 65 to 60!

[RGacky3]

Of coarse its not THE solution, but my point is that the economy can be improved my miles by just little tweaks. I'm sick of democrat and obama apologists saying "this is a hard problem" or "he's just one man, its a whole economy." My ass, there are public policy decisions that could grealtly affect the economy.

The CPI is another thing, benefits have actually been going down because they hav'nt been properly adjusted for cost of living. Remember Seniors spend MORE money on healthcare (no shit).

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

we could also do a 35 hour work week, get rid of NAFTA, raise import taxes on china, lower our outrageously high standard of living, remove our dependance on oil, start killing jobless people, and the list goes on and on.

seriously, those would ALL lower unemployment, and fix our depression, but that doesnt mean they are good ideas

[RGacky3]

seriously, those would ALL lower unemployment, and fix our depression, but that doesnt mean they are good ideas

If they would lower undemployment and fix the depression, how are they not good ideas?

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

If they would lower undemployment and fix the depression, how are they not good ideas?
let me restate that,
every one would fix that, but we shouldn't start killing jobless people.
so yes

[RGacky3]

let me restate that,
every one would fix that, but we shouldn't start killing jobless people.
so yes

Ok ... so apart from killing jobless people, which is stupid, how would lowering the retirement age, cutting the work week to 35 hours, or any other rational progressive legislation not be a good thing?

Raising import taxes would also be a good idea.

Removing dependance on oil is a much bigger project, so is lowering cost of living.

But anyway, whats your point.