I Support This Proposal

 President-elect Joe Biden has some good proposals about reforming Social Security so that people like me won't have to work until we die.

I would like to see the Windfall Elimination Provision repealed.  That is absolutely devastating to people like me who could use the extra $120 month.

Linked is an article about the proposed ideas.  Let's see asshole McConnell try and destroy this sane and humane reform.

Snip:

Biden’s Social Security platform includes key benefit increases. Eligible workers would get a guaranteed minimum benefit equal to at least 125% of the federal poverty level. People who have received benefits for at least 20 years would get a 5% bump. Widows and widowers could receive about 20% more per month. Biden also proposes changing the measurement for annual cost-of-living increases to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, or CPI-E, which could more closely track the expenses retirees face. To pay for the changes and extend the program’s solvency, Biden would apply Social Security payroll taxes to those making $400,000 and up. In 2020, only wages up to $137,700 are subject to those levies.

It's Always Our Fault We Are Poor in Old Age

This video about drove me crazy because it blames women especially for being destitute in old age, that they got that way because they were stupid about finances:



It is simply not reality as the vast majority of women, especially women who have never been married, have lived it. You can do all the right things and still wind up destitute. So many of these "how-to be financially stable" vids are by married people, who already have for the most part a big lifestyle and more options than never-married people. Even being married doesn't shield people from catastrophic illness or job loss. I completely disregard such advice as not only clueless, but cruel. Many, many people cannot EVER retire and must work until they can no longer do so. This is because pensions in the private sector (U.S.) have been eliminated in favor of do-it-yourself "savings plans" (401ks) which were NEVER designed to replace pensions, but loopholes in the federal ERISA law gave companies a way to destroy their pension systems. The vast majority of people can never, ever save enough on their own what an even small pension provides. For example, I have a $360 a month pension from a public employer (Nevada PERS). I would have had to save at least a couple hundred grand to tide me over for 30 or 40 years on that amount. Not realistically possible. The problem is systematic and not a problem of personal failure.


A lot of this advice comes from sources connected in some way to the financial services market, and of course they want you to spend money on their services by catering to your worst fears.

It is not the way of the real world. Pensions are necessary, yet they are rare outside the public sector in the United States these days.

I warned people about the 401(k) scam over 30 years ago because I did the research. Companies put them in and ditched the pensions because of cost. They shift the cost and the risk all on employees, who simply don't have the resources to fund an adequate retirement without decent pensions.

Existing, Not Living

If you are having to sit there and constantly pinch pennies--and I have done this--because you get only $633 a month in Social Security, sorry, but that is not "living." That is merely existing. You are just marking time until you die.

The reason this poor woman has so little to show for all her years in the labor force is because she worked in low-wage jobs, which result in getting lower Social Security benefits even when the system is set up to help replace a higher proportion of income than somebody who made more money. She lives in an area where it is apparently difficult for older people to land work, even part-time work.

The fact is, though, she is being penalized for being a woman independent of living off of a man. Our culture heavily penalizes women for doing so.

Yet Hillary Clinton, in a rare moment of cluelessness, waxes on and on about how "caregivers" should get even more in Social Security benefits, not realizing that it isn't married women who live off of men who are most vulnerable to poverty in old age. It is never-married and long-divorced women who are most vulnerable. The "caregivers" are already covered by Social Security and were the first group covered by it when it began in 1935. It specifically targeted women who were financially dependent on men because at that time there was no safety net for these women when they were alone. What Clinton believes--erroneously--is the widespread idea that women make less money than men because they pop in and out of the labor force for years at a time to stay home and care for babies and elderly relatives. This has always been bullshit. Women who don't do this--regardless of marital status and work histories--STILL fare poorly in old age. They are STILL underpaid compared to men across all occupations, with female-dominated occupations the most denigrated of all.

And why is that? It is because of an economic system that is heavily rigged against women because it underpays women believing they are dependents of men and therefore they don't need the money the way men do. It rigs the system against independent women by basically "encouraging" or coercing--depending on your point of view--women to get married and therefore benefitting men who somehow believe they have the right to sexual access of women's bodies by basically starving them if they don't marry. It is a harsh assessment, but it is the truth.

Women by the millions enter into one relationship with a man after another, one marriage after another, not because they are necessarily in love with the men but with the realization they cannot make it financially (especially if there are children involved) without a man. In a very real sense, marriage is a form of prostitution.

From the article:

Woodruff’s $633 monthly benefit is tight, but even someone who receives the average monthly benefit of $1,294 would need some type of financial assistance to get by. According to the advocacy group Wider Opportunities For Women, the monthly expenses for Americans 65 or older in 2013 totaled $1,645 for a single person living in their own house without a mortgage, $1,966 for a renter, and $2,481 for a single person with a mortgage (this includes housing, food, transportation, healthcare and miscellaneous expenses). For couples, it was $2,542, $2,863, and $3,378, respectively.

Clearly, those living solely on social security would need to cut way back on expenses or work to get by. Woodruff’s biggest sacrifice has been not being able to visit her little brother, who lives in a home for the developmentally challenged that’s a two-hour drive away. It’s one reason she’s diligent about saving as much as she can. “If there’s an emergency situation and I have to go see my brother, I can rent a car,” Woodruff says. A lack of a car also makes it harder to get around town, and makes even grocery shopping difficult because it’s hard for her to carry so many bags and the long bus ride means frozen or cold items could spoil. In addition, she’s also had to curtail outings with friends significantly. “My social life is virtually non-existent,” she says. “I can do dinner at a friend’s house or occasionally I might go out if it’s someplace cheap, but going out for a drink or dinner, I just can’t do that anymore.”

If I were her, I would try to find part-time work to augment the Social Security. Myself, I intend to do this for as long as I can.

Divorce May Make Women Poorer, But They Aren't the Worst Off in Retirement

The never-married, especially women, are:

The results highlight important links between marital trends, Social Security, and retirement outcomes. Although the never-married represent an economically diverse group, poverty among the elderly who have never married is particularly high—more than twice the national average in 2004, four times higher than that of married persons, and greater than the poverty rates of the divorced and widowed. In addition, a review of existing studies suggests that never-married persons are more likely to have health risks during retirement that are greater than those of married persons and the national average. MINT projections indicate important changes in the marital composition of future retirees marked by a rising proportion of never-married persons entering retirement age. Future never-married retirees, according to MINT, are expected to have the highest elderly poverty rate among marital groups.

Divorced women typically have more resources, including settlement from a home and other property, plus they can get part of their husband's Social Security benefit if they are married ten or more years-things that are NOT available to the never-married.

But hey, even though more and more of the population never marries, it is only people who are married or have been married who count, according to this stupid article.

401(k)s Are a Complete Failure

Of course it is no surprise more people than ever before are vulnerable in their old age. That is because of federal policies that made it easy for companies to ditch pensions and replace them--if at all--with those useless 401(k)s.

link

Of course never married or single women fare the worst of all, thanks to a system that denigrates women's work assuming as it does that they don't need as much money as men do because they are supported by men, reality to the contrary:

Single people and women face particular challenges. Single people tend to be less prepared for retirement than their married counterparts. Even among those approaching retirement (age 56–61), most single men and women do not have any retirement account savings (not shown on chart). In the past, married women were less likely to be covered through their own employers than were single women, but married women’s participation increased as their earnings grew (Morrissey and Sabadish 2013). In the new millennium, the biggest change has been the decline in the share of single men with retirement account savings and in the amount single men have saved in these accounts (Figures 14–15).

Though declines for single men closed savings gaps between single men and women, women generally remain more vulnerable than men because they live longer and are more likely to outlive their savings—and, in the case of married women, their spouses. Women can expect to live around 2.3 years longer than men in retirement (Social Security Trustees 2015). Because women earn less and accumulate less retirement savings and benefits than men, never-married, divorced, and widowed women are at greater risk of experiencing hardship in retirement than their male counterparts.

Yet people like Hillary Clinton still believe women in the top one percent of households should get Social Security "credit" because they can afford to stay home while the rest of us are totally fucked over since we as women are underpaid.

She, like many elites, doesn't understand the problem.

To update this post, here is another article stating the obvious that 401(k)s are an abysmal failure.

Unlike rich people who save and invest anyway because they have the disposable income to do so, most people cannot save the literally hundreds of thousands dollars to equal even a modest pension.

Why I Can't Retire

I may have linked this article from 2014 about the new "harvest of shame" but instead of agricultural migrant workers of the famed CBS documentary of 1960, they are largely made up of people of retirement age who cannot afford to retire.

It does not matter how well you plan. Unless you are a multimillionaire, you can lose everything you have ever worked for.

As for me, I am going to try like hell to stay in public employment up here, being eligible for some kind of pension. I am going to try and get more hours next year. And yes, I am going to get that K-12 license.

Aging isn’t what it used to be. In an era of disappearing pensions, wage stagnation, and widespread foreclosures, Americans are working longer and leaning more heavily than ever on Social Security, a program designed to supplement (rather than fully fund) retirement. For many, surviving the golden years now requires creative lifestyle adjustments. And for those riding the economy’s outermost edge, adaptation may now mean giving up what full-time RV dwellers call “stick houses” to hit the road and seek work.

May is a member of that tribe. Many of her peers describe themselves as retired, even if they are obliged to keep working well into their seventies or eighties. They call themselves workampers, travelers, nomads, and gypsies, while history-minded commentators have labeled them the Okies of the Great Recession. More bluntly, they are geriatric migrant labor, meeting demands for seasonal work in an increasingly fragmented, temp-driven marketplace. And whatever you call them, they’re part of a demographic that in the past several years has grown with alarming speed: downwardly mobile older Americans.

All of it is a result of deliberate federal policies to screw us over. And the GOP wants to make it even worse.

Our "elected officials" do not give a fuck if we die.

Yep, I Am Taking Social Security Early

At about this time next year, I will be able to receive Social Security benefits. Unfortunately, my monthly benefit will force me to remain in the labor force at least on a part-time basis until I die, assuming I will not find full-time work in any field.

The GOP pulls shit like trying to raise the retirement age under the bogus reason that people are "living longer." They aren't unless they are rich. The GOP ignores the reality that many people are fired in their fifties for stupid reasons and can never work again in any kind of meaningful work. What in the hell are they supposed to do until they are 70?

Of course they are hoping these people long since die before they can collect.

Meanwhile, poorer women’s lifespans have actually shrunk, some studies show. Some groups of Americans are living shorter lives than their parents. This disturbing phenomenon is concentrated among women: the poorest 40 percent of women have lower life expectancies than the previous generation, one study found. Higher death rates among white women seem to drive this trend.

If you are never-married and female, you are really screwed.

It Is a Good Idea, But It Is a Bit Late for Yours Truly

This article proposes a solution to the completely screwed-up mess of retirement these days.

I foresaw this decades ago when the Reagan administration and corporate America started targeting pensions. That 401(k) shit took hold, something that was never designed to replace a pension but supplement it.

Anyway, such an idea as in this article is better than nothing, but it is a laugh to think people need to save 20 to 30 times the 14k that is the average savings of working people. Besides, a lot of those people own houses free and clear, and that is where a lot of their retirement savings ends up being. For never-married women like me, few of us were ever able to get into real estate ownership.

The current system — a mix of 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts (I.R.A.s) — is broken. These plans are individually directed, voluntary and leaky. Just over half of workers don’t have access to a workplace retirement plan. According to the National Institute on Retirement Security, Americans between the ages of 40 and 55 have retirement savings of $14,500, when they will need between 20 and 30 times that amount. Many people take money out before they retire. And the wealthy tend to pay lower fees and get higher subsidies for their savings.

A bigger flaw is the way these plans hinder wise investing. Individualized retirement accounts are effectively restricted to short-term liquid stocks and bonds because they are designed to allow people to withdraw their money before retirement. So employees are paying for liquidity they don’t need and achieving subpar results. Traditional pension plans consistently perform better because they are diversified in long- and short-term investments.

In our plan, the more than 95 million workers without a pension plan would each have his or her own G.R.A. managed by an independent federal agency. Workers and employers would each contribute a mandatory minimum of 1.5 percent of the salary or contract. The current tax deduction for retirement savings would be converted to a $600 refundable tax credit to pay for the contributions of households below median income.

Hey, Let's Raise the EARLY Retirement Age To 90

so that few people EVER live long enough to collect it.

God damn I hate these people who are spewing anti-SS nonsense simply because businesses want to get out of paying their share of the FICA tax.

Given the rampant age discrimination in the workplace, few people are going to last in the job market until age 70 or 75, especially when it comes to full-time work.

Yours truly will have to work until at least 70 to get a monthly Oregon PERS benefit instead of a cash payout, if I last long enough to get vested. I would be 64 then in 2019 to get the vesting.

If I go full-time in the next year or two doing a different job, then I could get the monthly pension benefit and at an earlier age. Right now at my piddling pay, I can't.

Perhaps confusion arises because “raising the age of retirement” sounds like a nice jobs program for older Americans, or an end to forced retirement. I sympathize with that position: Anyone who wants to retire later and work into old age should have a job. But that’s not what raising the retirement age would entail—the fact is, raising the Social Security retirement age represents a reduction in benefits: Because the monthly payments a person receives grow bigger the later in life he or she retires, raising the age cutoff reduces the total amount of money paid out.

If workers are kicked to the curb at 55 or 60, if not earlier, what in the fuck are they supposed to do given the terrible job market?

Raising the age ALWAYS means a cut in benefits.

The article, unfortunately, makes the erroneous claim that taking benefits at 62 lowers your SS benefit for life. That is false. You get the same total amount, but it is spread out over a longer period of time. In fact, there is something called the "break-even" factor that means one would have to be in his or her late 70s or older to where the taking it early vs. taking it at 66 or 70 would be equal. The fact is when you take it at 62 instead of 66, you have FOUR years of extra payments when you are still relatively healthy enough to enjoy them. Many people are still working, and that amount will continue to recalculate. Others, like yours truly, will be forced to take it at 62 because of cash flow issues.

Of Course 401(k)s Are Crap

Thanks to loopholes in ERISA, companies ditched their pensions and put these scams in their place.

They are being used to save companies money on pensions. Nothing more, nothing less. Defined contribution plans were originally set up for high-paid executives to augment pensions. They were NEVER designed to replace them. Loopholes in ERISA guaranteed companies would shaft their workers by forcing them to go without any kind of savings plan or in these worthless 401(k)s while the companies saved a tremendous amount of money in pension costs by ditching them altogether.

People peddling these scams either are stupid or they refuse to tell people how much money you would have to save to have anything even remotely comparable to a pension. Hint: It is literally in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to save enough to be equivalent to even a small pension. With the job market the way it is, few people work for one employer their entire career or make enough that they can save enough money for it to be comparable to a pension.

Long Past Time to Purge the Third Way Fuckers From the Democratic Party

Note that I have put on my links list four out of the five Democratic presidential candidates' websites. I support Bernie Sanders, but my second choice is Martin O'Malley, who is much like Bernie Sanders on the issues but is younger and sleeker. O'Malley has come out with a plan to expand Social Security benefits (while not mentioning repealing WEP/GPO for public employees affected by it), but this is too much for the neolibs of the Third Way. Those assholes want to raise the retirement age to 70.

Why stop there? Why not raise it to 75, the age which the despicable Zeke Emanuel thinks is a good time to die? Why not 80? 90? 100?

These bastards want a large share of people to die before they get it. Already 15 percent of all of the people born during the Baby Boom of 1946-1964 are dead, and most of those never collected a dime in Social Security.

Here is O'Malley's idea, from his campaign site:

EXPANDING SOCIAL SECURITY SO AMERICANS CAN RETIRE WITH DIGNITY
Our parents and grandparents should be able to retire in dignity—not poverty. Yet today in America, too many retirees are struggling to make ends meet. At the same time, the economic pressures on millions of families—from stagnant wages and high housing costs, to a lack of affordable childcare and skyrocketing college tuition—have resulted in meager, if any, retirement savings for tomorrow’s retirees.

Our government must do more to improve the economic and retirement security of all Americans. That is why Governor O’Malley has set a national goal of increasing the number of Americans with adequate retirement savings by 50 percent within two terms in office.

As the first and most important step toward meeting that goal, Governor O’Malley will expand Social Security benefits—not reduce them or undermine Social Security in any other way. Second, O’Malley will also make it easier for private-sector workers to invest in their retirement. He will put commonsense protections in place to prevent older Americans from losing the savings they already have. And to ensure that all families can afford to save for retirement in the first place, O’Malley will continue to put forward detailed policies to raise the wages of all workers.

EXPAND AND PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE RETIREES

Social Security is one of our country’s greatest collective achievements. Since it was first implemented in 1935, Social Security has kept millions of elderly Americans out of poverty. Today—following the Great Recession, which decimated the retirement savings of millions of Americans—Social Security remains an especially critical lifeline for our parents and grandparents: without it, more than four in 10 Americans over 65 would be living in poverty.

We cannot ask seniors with modest savings to live on even less. Instead, we should expand Social Security so they can retire with the dignity they have earned over the course of their working lives.

As president, Governor O’Malley will:

Increase Social Security benefits for all retirees—both today’s and tomorrow’s. Governor O’Malley supports immediately boosting monthly benefits in a progressive manner for all Social Security was intended as a supplement to individual savings and pensions, but today, one in five married couples, and nearly half of unmarried individuals, rely almost exclusively on Social Security checks to survive. More than two-thirds of Americans near retirement will not have enough savings to maintain their current standard of living.
Strengthen Social Security’s long-term fiscal outlook. The solvency of Social Security is not in crisis: Social Security has adequate funds to pay full benefits through 2034. But to pay for expanded benefits, Governor O’Malley supports lifting the cap on the payroll tax for workers earning more than $250,000.In addition, Congress should implement policies to lift the wages of all workers, which will make meaningful contributions to Social Security’s long-term balance sheet. This includes raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and enacting comprehensive immigration reform.
Ensure Social Security benefits are sufficient to keep retirees out of poverty. The immediate future is dire for many Americans nearing retirement: one in five Americans has no retirement savings at all. To keep seniors out of poverty, Governor O’Malley supports increasing the special minimum social security benefit to 125 percent of the poverty line for Americans who have worked at least 30 years.
Increase Social Security benefits for minimum wage- and lower-income workers. As wealth inequality continues to widen and traditional middle class jobs prove harder to come by, Governor O’Malley supports adjusting “bend points” in the formula to give minimum-wage and lower- and middle-income workers more financial security.
Prevent benefits from eroding over time. Governor O’Malley supports using the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) instead of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners (CPI-W) to determine Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. The CPI-E provides a more accurate reflection of the higher cost of living for retirees than the current measure, which focuses on younger workers. Using the CPI-E will ensure that benefits do not erode for future generations of retirees.
Reform Social Security to support, rather than penalize, caregiving. Governor O’Malley supports providing up to five years of “caregiver credits” that would increase the 35-year wage base for those who spend an extended period of time providing full-time care for children, elderly parents, or other dependents. In practice, current methods of calculating benefits penalize workers, most often women, who take extended time off to care for their families.
Reject efforts to raise the Social Security retirement age. Governor O’Malley believes that raising the retirement age is a back-door way to cut benefits for lower-income workers. It harms these workers in two ways: by forcing them to delay retirement in jobs that are often physically difficult, and by reducing lifetime payouts compared to wealthier retirees, who live five years longer on average than their lower-income counterparts.
CREATE SIMPLE, STREAMLINED RETIREMENT SAVINGS OPPORTUNITIES

With the days of defined benefit plans long past, millions of hardworking Americans lack adequate savings to support their standards of living when they retire. Nearly one in three Americans has no retirement savings, rising to one in two for Americans under the age of 30. Current investment vehicles such as defined contribution plans and IRAs have been grossly inadequate and underutilized for preparing most working Americans for comfortable retirements.

As president, Governor O’Malley will:

Dramatically expand access to employer-based retirement plans. Half of all workers do not have access to a retirement plan. Among part-time and low-income workers, roughly seven in 10 lack an employer-based retirement option. Governor O’Malley would require employers with more than 10 employees to process an automatic employee contribution to an IRA for all employees, at a level determined by the employee (who would have the option to opt out).
Raise wages so all workers can afford to save. Since millions of hardworking Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck and struggle to save for retirement, raising the minimum wage and other wage policies are also critical to ensuring that today’s workers can retire with dignity and security in the future.
PROTECT SENIORS FROM RISKS TO THEIR FINANCIAL SECURITY

Older Americans face increased financial risks that threaten their ability to retire with dignity. Every day, unscrupulous lenders and scam artists attempt to separate seniors from their lifelong earnings. Republicans in Congress bent on slashing budgets attempt to undermine Social Security and other vital programs. And a growing number of aging Americans who need quality long-term care cannot afford it.

Implementing measures to better protect seniors from these threats to their financial security will help provide a stronger retirement firewall for millions of Americans.

As president, Governor O’Malley will:

Reject efforts to privatize Social Security. Governor O’Malley views proposals to privatize Social Security for what they are—a massive benefits cut that will gut Social Security, add to the federal debt, and leave future generations without the critical protections Social Security has provided for decades.
Increase penalties for those who defraud our seniors. Older Americans are often targets for financial scams and exploitation, at an estimated cost of nearly $3 billion a year. The vast majority of frauds go unreported. Governor O’Malley will advocate for policies to protect our seniors from financial fraud, including laws to increase penalties for the financial exploitation of older Americans, laws to allow financial advisors to refuse or delay transactions where clients are being defrauded or exploited, programs to better identify and report financial exploitation among older Americans, and increased investment in prosecutors and advocates to go after elderly abuse.
Fully implement the fiduciary rule. Under existing retirement advice rules, some brokers and financial advisers are allowed to sell Americans products even if they know they are poor investments. This conflict of interest, where advisers put their own bottom lines before helping their clients, costs workers saving for retirement $17 billion every year. President Obama has proposed a critical and commonsense rule to require those who give financial advice to put their clients’ interests first. Governor O’Malley will fully enforce this important fiduciary standard, protecting the retirement savings of millions of Americans and creating a level playing field for the many investment advisers who already act in their customers’ best interests.
Make affordable, high-quality long-term care a national priority. Americans’ longer lifespans are outpacing our ability to provide quality and affordable long-term care. Although seven out of 10 Americans will need home care at some point in their lives, many Americans and their families struggle to afford it. Nine out of 10 people who provide long-term care are women, while home care workers are underpaid, overworked, and lack important benefits and protections.As baby boomers age, now is the time to move forward, working with the private sector, to develop an efficient, affordable, and high-quality system to provide a diverse range of long-term care services for our seniors. Governor O’Malley will lay out a comprehensive plan for reforming long-term care and supporting caregivers in the coming weeks and months.

I Will Believe Repeal of the Odious WEP/GPO When I See It

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, one of those rare people who is actually a Democrat, yesterday introduced legislation that would repeal the legalized theft of Social Security benefits called the WEP/GPO. The number of the bill is Senate Bill S.1651.

Of course I will believe repeal when I see it. Many federal politicians give this thing lip service, but nothing ever gets beyond committee. It needs to get out of there and onto the Senate floor.

I know our Congress doesn't do shit by design, unless it passes something like TPP designed to screw the rest of us over, but at least they could get off their asses and repeal this shit.

They could raise the cap to offset the offsets if money is a problem, but instead these louts prefer to keep things the way they are.

As I mentioned before about this issue, these offsets were put in back in the era when people did work for one company for thirty years, and many public employees spent thirty years or more in public employment. That is why there is the "30-year" rule on "substantial earnings" to be exempt from the offsets. This is no longer true in either public or private employment, and these offsets absolutely force people, especially women, into poverty.

The public employees who do receive big pensions are typically those who don't qualify for SS in the first place because they don't have the 40 quarters to be eligible.

I will be lucky if I get 1k a month in both SS and a pension when I have to collect SS when I turn 62 a year-and-a-half from now. I am in classified work--part-time work--which means I can NEVER make "substantial earnings" that would count toward the 30 years that would make me exempt from the heinous WEP. I have about 24 years right now, but who knows what SS comes up with when I apply?

Republicans Heller (NV), Murkowski (AK), and Collins (ME), all from states affected by these offsets, have co-sponsored this legislation. Another Republican, Vitter from Louisiana, has also co-sponsored the repeal.

It's a good show, but I think idiot Orren Hatch is in charge of the Finance Committee, where these repeals always get buried.

A similar bill has been introduced in the House. It is called HR 973.

Retirement? HA!

Of course with the policies deliberately designed to screw over the masses in order to enrich the tiny number of people at the top, most people have nothing to show for retirement.

Unless, of course, they own a house outright.

Most people retiring today do not have a "pension." A defined contribution plan is NOT a pension. The move towards screwing over people on retirement started back during the Reagan years.

Fifty-two percent of households of people 55 and older haven't saved a dime for retirement, though nearly half of those do have an employer pension. Among the remaining 48 percent of older households with savings, the median amount was $109,000 -- good for an annuity of about $405 per month.

The lack of savings is potentially problematic, the GAO notes, because the populous baby-boom generation is heaving into retirement with fewer pensions than its predecessors. In 1975, most workers with employer-sponsored retirement plans had pensions that provided a lifetime "defined benefit." As of 2012, such plans had 40 million participants, while 91 million workers had retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s, which are based on workers' own contributions and offer no guarantee of lifetime income.

Good old workers didn't see the scam way back when. They thought they were going to be millionaires when they retired.

Retirement? Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!

It would be hilarious if it weren't so goddamned tragic.

Who the fuck, especially if you are a single woman, can AFFORD to retire? It's damned near impossible.

Almost all of the "advice" for "retirement" is geared toward married people, and therefore is useless for people in my situation.

Unless you are married to a working spouse, have a very high income, or own a house free and clear and can sell it, you cannot retire in reasonable comfort at all.

A lot of these articles are nothing more than infomercials by investment fund outfits trying to con people they need more money than they actually do to retire.

They turn my stomach and are even cruel in my estimation.

This is a typical bullshit article that laughably suggests single women "save" at least a half-million dollars before they can fund their health care or whatever the fuck the idiot is suggesting, to say nothing of retirement income.

Of course the idiot has never heard of Medicaid, and that is typically what pays for long-term care when all of the assets are spent down:

The health safety net question naturally leads to the topic of a plan for financing any long-term care need that might arise. One option is to self-fund; industry experts say that in order to have a 95% chance of having sufficient resources to self-fund a long-term care need, you should be able to set aside $500,000 to $750,000 in retirement assets just for that purpose.

Obviously there is some connection with some kind of investment outfit not to state the obvious here.


The SSA discusses the problems facing the never-married in old age, but I think they underestimate the problem.

Few people regardless of marital status will have anything in old age because of the rampant age discrimination in the workplace and the near-impossibility of getting back on track financially.

Sure I Am Going to Wait Until I Am 70

The top-selling book on Amazon is this book trying to con people to take Social Security at 70 or even later. This despite the fact many people like yours truly can't do it because of the inability to get full-time work.

The book sounds like a load of b.s. directed at the very rich who can afford to take the benefits later.

The "newspaper of record" has a book review or blurb of sorts, and of course the comments are better than the article and probably the book.

The book sounds like one-percenter horse manure. It doesn't apply if you have never married and you find yourself underemployed.


Edit: Okay. I downloaded the book and found only about two chapters applied to my situation at all. I am supposed to wait until I am 70 to take SS, and there was a chapter on the truly evil WEP/GPO. Since I get such an itty-bitty pension from Nevada and started getting it at 56, WEP won't fuck me up as badly than if I had waited until I was 65 to collect the full pension amount.

At least I did something right in this "expert's" eyes.

The book is still geared toward the well-off and not based on the real situations of most people.

It Bears Repeating They Are Scams

I probably have linked this 2013 article before, and if so, it is worth linking again.

It should be evident by now 401(k)s are among the biggest scams ever created. They were never designed to help workers to get a secure retirement but instead were designed to save companies money when they ditched traditional pensions in favor of these sham accounts. They also are another form of wealth transfer, this time to the banksters while the little guys are left holding the bag.

People have no idea how much they would have to save to even approach a piddling pension like what I am getting now. It would be well over $100,000 just to have a monthly pension like mine of $306 and last thirty years. Of course, my pension will snowball thanks to cost of living raises.

About the only "wealth" most individuals and families have is tied up in homes, assuming they can afford them in the first place and have any equity in them at all.

Lies, Lies, and More Lies

I called out this birdbrained editorial from the Reno Gazette-Journal regarding the disclosure of individual public employees' pension benefits:

You are such a liar, Kelly. The ONLY reason you have asked for those records is to create jealousy among those who are so unfortunate as to not have a "cushy" pension and distract people from the fact Wall Street has declared open warfare on pensions and Social Security so they can privatize them and make off with the spoils. We saw that happen when private pensions were gutted, thanks to loopholes in ERISA, in favor of scam 401(k)s, which were NEVER intended to be pensions and are NOT pensions. This is all politically-motivated hogwash. Groups like ALEC and Pew-Arnold (with John Arnold having been affiliated with ENRON) are out to destroy pensions among public employees. They are waging 24/7 propaganda, aided and abetted by the media, to claim states can no longer "afford" these "cushy" pensions and it's time to privatize them and give them to the crooks on Wall Street to pilfer. Too many people in the private sector just lap this garbage up because they didn't see this class warfare by the few against the many years ago when 401(k)s were replacing pensions and are whining that because they don't have pensions anymore, why should anybody else? What they should be demanding is a secure retirement income for ALL.

I also have got news for you, Kelly. Every public employee in Nevada does NOT pay into Social Security. States cannot be required to pay into SS because of constitutional prohibitions against the federal government levying a tax on state and local governments, and FICA is a tax (states and local governments can and do opt in, and most do, but they can't be required to). Those relatively few people who have worked some 25 or 30 years in Nevada employment get little or nothing in Social Security, including spousal survivor benefits, thanks to federal "offsets" that steal from these public employees in some silly notion that they are "double dipping." Those of us who worked in public employment in midlife and paid into Social Security for years and years but don't have 30 years (you can tell the offset regulations were instituted in the late 1970s, when careers of 30 years with one company were fairly common) in "substantial employment" in the system get the shaft regardless of how little money we get in PERS. Yours truly gets a mere 300 a month pension, but when I am forced to collect early Social Security in three years thanks to finding it next to impossible to find full-time work, I will have at least 50 or 60 a month of SS STOLEN from me because I have just a few years of public employment in Nevada. I will likely have less than 1k a month TOTAL, far, far less than what many people get retiring from private sector work and retire just on Social Security and with no spouse to cushion the blow. Many people are shafted even worse because of these offsets.

You want the retirement records of individuals to create division and jealousy from private sector employees against public sector employees. Be honest for once. This is politically motivated.

On a related front, let's also tell the truth about public employees--they do not work for the "taxpayers," since they, too, are taxpayers. Public employees work for the agencies that employ them. Anybody who employs such nonsense about how public employees are "working for the taxpayers" is just spewing ALEC talking points.

Good Question

Saw this in the comments at the Social Security Fairness website:

Will Mr. Obama be able to use his EXECUTIVE ORDER rights to REPEAL WEP & GPO, or, is the Ways & Means Committee the only body in our government authorized to do so?

You can bet your ass nothing will be done in D.C. In the past thirty years, they have passed only two pieces of major legislation that have actually helped people (other than safety net funding for programs that were already in place): the Family Medical Leave Act (violated routinely by school districts) and the Americans With Disabilities Act. That's it.

Don't count on them repealing the hideous WEP/GPO. Right now, the movement is to demonize public employees, both workers and the retired, and to bitch about their "huge" pensions in an effort to pilfer the state treasuries to enrich Wall Street gangsters.

This person's story is typical of those who get the WEP/GPO shaft:

I worked as an elementary teacher for 15 years before taking an early retirement package offered by my district I was 57 and was needed at home for family health problems.I continued to work part time for adult ed pay teaching intervention classes, eventually teaching full time. I worked until I was 78. At 65 I applied for social security spousal benefits —-denied—– because I had the fantastic retirement income of $700 mo.!!! That would be ” double dipping” !!! I am 80 now and if anything happens to my husband I am not entitled to survivor benefits which all my friends get whether they worked or not , as long as they did not work in the “much revered” profession of teaching the future citizens of the world!!!! This WEP/GPO is the most unfair, discriminatory piece of legislation in recent history. My husband worked 40 years paying into social security for his family, I worked 35 years teaching youngsters to respect their country and its laws only to have my country turn its on back on me. If this is not changed soon I will be living at a poverty level. Please HELP !!!!

Washington can't hear you; the politicians in both political parties are too busy listening to their masters in the gangster class to care about whether you have a decent retirement income or not. They are working on more ways to screw us over.

Fat Chance They Will Do One Damned Thing About It

I am of course referring to that goddamned theft of public employees in states not covered by Social Security, also known as the "windfall elimination provision" and the "government pension offset." These bullshit penalties were put in by Congress in around 1978, ostensibly to discourage high-paid military personnel from "double-dipping" in both military and private sector work. Of course, it was the civilian public sector labor force in 14 states and other jurisdictions around the country who got fucked over, since Congress assumed all public employees work their entire careers in public employment and get such "generous" pensions. It's debatable what constitutes a "generous" pension. Congress probably assumes pensions are "generous" like yours truly gets of just 300 a month (and may go up a few bucks this month since I am now in my fourth year of collecting PERS) and got into public employment while in my forties. Additionally, I have no spouse as a safety net. Oh, I appreciate getting a pension of some kind, unlike most workers, but face it, workers in the private sector don't get fucked over on Social Security because they have pensions or they have 401(k)s. Public employees in states that pay into Social Security also don't get fucked over.

The only way people like me can keep full Social Security benefits is if we work in "substantial employment" covered by Social Security for at least thirty years. Well, I have "only" 24-25 years in, and I don't believe there is a chance in HELL I will EVER work full-time, let alone part-time, ever again.

There should have been a class action lawsuit filed years ago against this rotten legislation, and our elected officials in D.C., for all of their talk about repealing these shitty laws, won't do one fucking thing about it.

Hell, why should they when most are owned by the likes of Peter J. Peterson, who wants to destroy Social Security and fuck EVERYBODY over so they can have more?

Social Security Fairness wants to pressure Obama, but he has more pressing matters to worry about, like trying to save his marriage or working with Michelle on a post-presidency divorce settlement, if the tabloids can be believed.

"Retirement"? What's That?

More and more people are finding out they either have to work until they drop dead, or, if they can't find work after they've been kicked to the curb, drop dead anyway.

It's just what the neolibs want.

Even so, one-third of retired survey respondents said they did not stop working by choice. The figures were higher within certain demographic groups: racial minorities, those with less formal education or lower household incomes were more likely to feel they had no option but to retire. Eight percent say they were forced from a job because of their age. In interviews, survey respondents cited health as well as layoffs followed by unsuccessful job searches.

I know that feeling firsthand.