Social Security

Number of the Day: $23 a Month

By Michael Rainey

The Social Security Administration on Thursday said the cost-of-living adjustment for 2020 would be 1.6%. That translates to a bump of about $23 on the average monthly benefit of $1,460. The 2020...
The Case for Giving Social Security to Children

By Michael Rainey

US social welfare programs reduced poverty by about two-thirds overall in 2018, according to an analysis of Census data by Matt Bruenig of the left-leaning People’s Policy Project. Bruenig offers a...
Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan to Expand Social Security

By Michael Rainey and Yuval Rosenberg

Elizabeth Warren released a plan Thursday to expand Social Security and raise benefit payments. Warren’s plan would: Immediately increase benefit payments by $200 a month. If enacted, Warren’s plan...
More Progress in Tackling Poverty, but Meager Gains for the Middle Class

By Yuval Rosenberg

The poverty rate fell for the fourth straight year in 2018, dropping to 11.8%, the lowest level since 2001, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. In all, some 38 million people were living in poverty...
Op-Ed of the Day: Fighting the Next Recession Now

By The Fiscal Times Staff

Jason Furman, the former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama, has some advice for Congress: Start preparing for the next recession now. In a Wall Street...

Americans Are Missing Out on Trillions in Social Security

By The Fiscal Times Staff

Americans will lose out on $3.4 trillion in benefits by claiming Social Security too early, according to a new report from United Income, an investment management and financial planning company...
Growth of US Debt Slows, but Record Levels Still Ahead

By Michael Rainey

The national debt will reach “unprecedented levels” over the next 30 years, according to the new long-term budget outlook released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office. Federal outlays will...
7 Ways to Fix America’s Fiscal Mess

By Yuval Rosenberg

Tackling the $22 trillion national debt can be done in very different ways. Underscoring that point, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan organization focused on increasing...
Social Security Error Jeopardizes Medicare Coverage For 250,000 Seniors

By Susan Jaffe, Kaiser Health News

At least a quarter of a million Medicare beneficiaries may receive bills for as many as five months of premiums they thought they already paid. But they shouldn’t toss the letter in the garbage. It’s...
What Do Maine and Florida Have in Common? Lots of Social Security Recipients

By Michael Rainey

More than 17% of Maine residents received Social Security retiree benefits in 2018, Bloomberg’s Marie Patino reports , the highest proportion in the country. Other states with a high percentage of...

Yellen, Democratic Economists Say Fixing Debt Crisis Isn’t All About Entitlements

By Yuval Rosenberg

Late last month, a quintet of big-name Hoover Institution economists warned in a Washington Post op-ed that a coming “string of perpetually rising trillion-dollar-plus deficits” could soon lead to a...
Which Americans Worry Most About Social Security?

By Yuval Rosenberg

Maybe call it social insecurity? Just over half of American adults between the ages of 50 and 64 say they worry a “great deal” about the Social Security system, according to recent polling by Gallup...
The Old Will Outnumber the Young in the US by 2035

By The Fiscal Times Staff

By 2030, all Baby Boomers will be older than 65, meaning that one in five U.S. residents will be of retirement age, the Census Bureau reports . And by 2035, seniors will outnumber children for the...
The $82 Trillion Problem Washington Has Stopped Talking About

By Yuval Rosenberg

Now that “the anti-deficit hysteria of the Great Recession has given way to a backlash of complacency,” lawmakers and the public are ignoring “an $82 trillion avalanche of Social Security and...
New Budget Projections Show a Rising Tide of Red Ink Ahead

By Michael Rainey

The Congressional Budget Office won’t release new budget projections that include the effects of the President Trump’s tax overhaul until April, but on Friday the deficit hawks at the Committee for a...