Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year
This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.
The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.
Analysts have long tried to predict the year when Social Security would pay out more than it took in because they view it as a tipping point — the first step of a long, slow march to insolvency, unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances.
I have always believed that Social Security would run out of money before I got old enough to collect on it.
Not that ObamaCare won’t go broke, either.
“The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.”
And yet, private, non-government retirement plans don’t have this issue since they depend on you to contribute!
Someone tell me again why socialistic plans are supposed to be superior? And why people who didn’t vote Democrat (and by extension must be agaist the concept and expansion of big government social programs) were supposedly voting against their own self interest?
“… depend on you to contribute to your own plan”, I mean. Blech… should proofread before hitting “Submit”.