GOOD TIMES
Saving Social Security You’ve heard the news about recent cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, and disease-prevention programs – are cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits next? If the Trump administration’s 2020 budget proposals Eliz abeth are any indication, it’s definitely something to worry Morse Read about. The 2017 tax cuts created a massive deficit that needs to be filled – and slashing entitlement programs are being considered as a way to reverse the effects of the tax cuts. Social Security has long been called the “third rail of politics” – you touch it, you die. But despite his campaign promises before the 2016 election “not to touch Social Security,” Donald Trump has hinted that he may indeed do that in his second term as a way to address the ballooning federal budget deficits. So keep that in mind when you vote in this year’s elections. The federal budget deficit has ballooned to almost a trillion dollars (that’s nine zeros, folks), nearly double what it
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was three years ago, and most people just yawn and pull
their retirement years over the past decade. Slow income
Sixty-four million Americans rely on Social Security benefits, and that number will rise to 74 million by 2030 up the covers, pretending it doesn’t have anything to do with them. But it does.
A merica’s safety net Americans have found it harder and harder to save for
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growth, unpaid caregiving for children or ailing parents, temporary unemployment after the Great Recession and high healthcare costs have made saving for a
retirement “nest egg” virtually impossible. Maximizing and protecting our future Social Security benefits is critical to preventing retirement insecurity. Sixty-four million Americans rely on Social Security benefits, and that number will rise to 74 million by 2030. Of those 64 million people, more than a third are kept out of poverty solely because of those monthly payments. But according to news reports and government studies, the Social Security trust fund is expected to run out of money in 2036. (The situation for Medicare is even worse – its funds are due to evaporate by 2026.) Women especially are at high risk of financial insecurity when they reach retirement age, due to a number of factors such as lost-income years spent raising children or caring for elderly
