Top Republican suggests raising Social Security full retirement age to 70
Republican-held Congress might look to raise the retirement age to 70, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) suggested Monday June 28. Boehner, the top Republican lawmaker in the House, said raising the retirement age by five years, indexing benefits to the rate of inflation and means-testing benefits would make the massive entitlement program more solvent. “We’re all living a lot longer than anyone ever expected,” Boehner said in a meeting with the editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “And I think that raising the retirement age — going out 20 years, so you’re not affecting anyone close to retirement — and eventually getting the retirement age to 70 is a step that needs to be taken.” The GOP leader said Social Security was the most important entitlement to reform, though he also pledged Republicans would bring legislation to the floor to repeal and replace the health care reforms passed earlier this year if the GOP wins back control of the House this fall.
Source: The Hill (June 29, 2010)
July 12th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
How about raising federal pension benefits to age 70 Mr. congressman.
I fill cheated since many people born in the 60′s have already experienced an age increase for full benefits from 65 to 67. Why are we even paying in this crappy system. I save for retirement and hope that I will not be dependant on ss in the future but feel that this is a earned benefit and not a entitlement.
July 18th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
This scam is being perpetrated on Americans to delay full Social Security benefits to age 70 by proponents who tell us they want to “save” Social Security. Unfortunately, most of them really want to “end” Social Security.
It is no more than a tightly orchestrated stampede to steal the $2.539 Trillion Dollars of FICA Social Security payroll taxes currently being paid by more than a hundred million working Americans, along with the lifetime of accumulated Social Security payroll taxes paid by more than forty-million Social Security retirees currently receiving benefits.
The delay of full Social Security benefits to age 70 is being pushed by the same politicians, lobbyists, and best and brightest of Wall Street who were perfectly willing to destroy the U.S. economy and work force in the name of improving corporate profits and extending the transfer of more wealth from the middle class to the top 1%.
Why are they so willing to redeem the U.S. Treasury securities sold to the Saudi oil princes and the Chinese government, but not willing to redeem the U.S. Treasury securities sold to the Social Security Trust Fund from the payroll tax contributions of approximately 150-million Americans?
What the mostly unnamed proponents of delaying full Social Security eligibility to age 70 don’t want to tell us is that increasing the Social Security tax from 12.2% to 14.7% would enable the present retirement age to be left unchanged indefinitely with no further expected increases.
Nor, do they mention that the amount of earned income subject to Social Security has dropped from approximately 90% in the 1980s to approximately 85% by 2010. The mostly unnamed proponents don’t mention or discuss returning to the 90% established by President Reagan when Social Security was last overhauled.
Delaying full Social Security eligibility to age 70 means that the millions of people aged 66–69 who die before age 70 will never collect any Social Security. Gee, if they raised the eligibility to age 120, they would reach their goal of never paying out any Social Security (perhaps they will float that proposal in 2012 before the 2012 elections).
In addition, almost half of Americans have zero retirement benefits other than Social Security. Many of those with other retirement benefits, including defined benefit pension plans, 401(k) plans, and IRA plans, will not be eligible for sufficient retirement income to adequately support their retirement needs.
Denying Social Security benefits until age 70 ignores the significant drop in earned income opportunities for people in the age 50 – 70 group due to the reduced amount of job opportunities. Older Americans will now find they have no jobs and fewer retirement benefits.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:59 am
your blog’s design is simple and clean….
Mind if I use some of the information from this post if I provide a link back to your site?…
August 4th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Why don’t we raise the age for eligibility past the age of life expectancy of Americans? That will solve the problem.
Seriously, though, we are fighting the longest fought war in American history. End that now, save trillions of dollars.