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Your friend, Sarah Bernie, is complaining, - "The system is rigged! They want to cut the payroll tax that employers pay to finance Social Security. This will help employers but do nothing to help the workers." Is Sarah right or wrong? Use economic analysis to support your answer.

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Yusra Anees
Yusra AneesLv10
28 Sep 2019

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(OWN WORDS PLEASE ) THANKS

Learn more about Social Security and Medicare reform (to improve financial strength of the programs) or solvency through Internet exploration. Find an article or resource related to one of these topics. Attach the article and write a brief summary (300-400 words) of what you found. Summarize the Article.

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

U.S. Social Security reform: the clock is ticking

Clocks are seen during the performance "tck tck tck" by Global Campaign for Climate Action at the Barcelona Climate Change Talks, November 4, 2009. REUTERS/Albert Gea

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Can you count on your Social Security benefits when retirement rolls around?

Most Americans worry about this - partly due to the nonsense they hear from political opponents of Social Security and ill-informed media. You will hear that the program is bankrupt, its reserves are nothing but a bunch of IOUs, or that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.

All of those claims are false, but there is one good reason for concern. Social Security faces a long-term financial imbalance that would force sharp benefit cuts in 2034 unless the government makes changes. The problem stems from falling fertility rates and labor force growth - which reduces collection of payroll taxes that fund the system - and also from the retirement of baby boomers, which increases benefit costs.

Absent reform, Social Security could continue to pay roughly 75 percent of promised benefits. The cuts would mean that the typical 65-year-old worker could expect Social Security to replace 27 percent of pre-retirement income, down from 36 percent today, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

No surprise, then, that only 37 percent of workers are “very or somewhat confident” that Social Security will be able to maintain current benefit levels in the future, according to survey research by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) - although confidence is much higher among older workers and retirees.

From a math standpoint, potential solutions to the problem are straightforward. The cuts can be avoided through increased revenue, benefit reductions or some combination of the two. But the politics are another matter.

Republicans are far from holding a unified position on the issue. For example, U.S. Representative Sam Johnson, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security, has proposed legislation containing two significant benefit cuts: gradually raising full retirement ages to 69 by 2030, and using a less generous annual cost-of-living adjustment formula known as the chained CPI.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has so far held to his campaign promise of opposing cuts. He has suggested that economic growth will solve the problem by stimulating wage growth and payroll tax collections - a position most economists dismiss as unrealistic.

REPUBLICAN ENTHUSIASM LACKING

The last major Republican reform proposal dates back to the George W. Bush administration, which proposed shifting the program to personal savings accounts - an idea that aroused Republican passion but that went down in flames.

“That was an idea that got people excited, but there hasn’t been much enthusiasm for Social Security reform among Republicans since then,” said Andrew Biggs, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Biggs worked on Social Security reform as an associate director of the White House National Economic Council.

Meanwhile, Democrats are in no mood to work with the Trump administration on anything that forces a compromise on their core values - and they have shifted significantly to the left on Social Security reform. Representative John Larson has introduced legislation that would not only restore trust fund balance but expand benefits. That is by far the best approach, since roughly half of all households have saved less than $25,000, according to EBRI. Larson’s bill is cosponsored by more than 80 percent of the Democratic House caucus - more than any previous expansion bill.

The bill would increase benefits by 2 percent across the board, shift to a more generous annual cost-of-living adjustment that reflects spending by seniors and set a new minimum benefit at 25 percent above the poverty line. It also would cut taxes for millions of retirees by boosting significantly the threshold for taxation of benefits.

The plan raises revenue by gradually increasing the payroll tax rates that fund the program. The rate hikes would begin in 2019, and by 2042, workers and employers would pay 7.4 percent each, instead of the current 6.2 percent.

Larson, a Connecticut Democrat, also proposes changes to the payroll tax cap for very wealthy beneficiaries. Currently, payroll tax is collected only on wages up to $127,200; the plan would start collecting taxes again on wages above $400,000. That exempts more income than many earlier expansion plans, which either removed the cap entirely or resumed taxation at $250,000.

The payroll tax cap feature played an important role in boosting support for expansion legislation, according to Max Richtman, CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a progressive advocacy group that supports the bill. “It brought many of the more conservative Democratic legislators on board,” he said.

Of course, the Larson bill is going nowhere in the Republican-controlled Congress, so Social Security reform will not happen before the 2018 midterm elections at the earliest - and perhaps much later than that. But that does not mean beneficiaries should worry about draconian cuts in 2034.

Even if reform is not achieved by 2034, Biggs thinks the problem likely would be solved at the 11th hour through tax increases - simply because benefit cuts must be enacted and phased in over long periods to give beneficiaries time to adjust.

”If they were going to do this by cutting benefits, it should have been enacted 20 years ago,“ he said. ”If you want to do it by raising taxes you want to wait as long as possible, so that you get to the point where the only solution is to put more money into the program.”

But the uncertainty on Social Security policy will continue to undermine public confidence in the program - and that is worrying. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.

Description
Thinking like an economist can be helpful in your daily life. If you understand basic economic principles such as incentives, opportunities, and risks and rewards, you can make better decisions. Learning to view the world as an economist can also help you make decisions about which credit card to apply for, what loan to take, or which health care plan is the best.

For this assignment, you will participate in a discussion about the two roles of economists in the context of a specific scenario. When responding to the discussion questions, be sure to reference course materials to support your conclusions and opinions. You should do the same whenever you respond to another person’s discussion post. By doing so, you not only make a stronger case, but better support your own learning.

Scenario
Imagine that a group of advisors to the president has suggested providing a tax cut for the middle class in order to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment. The president has asked for your analysis of this proposed tax cut.


Instructions

In a post to the discussion, respond to the following:

Describe how an economic scientist would approach the tax cut recommended by the advisors in the scenario you just read. What are some economic factors that the economic scientist would consider when crafting his or her statement on the tax cut proposed?

Describe how an economic policy advisor would approach the same tax cut and provide the reasoning behind the position.

Remember to think like an economis, even if it goes against your own opinions about whether a tax cut is a good idea.

What economic principles does the tax cut involve?

What are some of the repercussions of the tax cut on the wealthy and do you think this is a positive or negative outcome? Why?

Do you think tax donations should be tax deductible even when it hurts government revenue?

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