Calculate your social security with Bush plan and regular SS

[Quixote1818]

http://www.schumer.senate.gov/calc/

I will loose $5,000 a year. Great plan.

[AllegroRondo]

1. I lost about the same amount

great site. Any idea what formulas are behind the numbers?

[Quixote1818]

5. The site provides them.

[olacan]

2. I think

there is a problem with the way this figures the payback, it says I am guaranteed just over 2100 a month. Every paper I have from SS shows around a 1500 a month pay. Plus there is as far as I know no guarantee on the SS check.

[patricia92243]

3. I can't get it to work. Do you fill in anything besides your salary and

birthdate?

[Quixote1818]

4. Of course Bush's plan does not work.

Yes, two things. Did you try to refresh?

[whistle]

8. You have to put in an age base of 1950 (54 or younger)...

...because Bush says those of us who are 55 or older now won't be affected. That of course is another lie, because Bush plans to lower all benefits and those benefits will decrease each year just by virtue of the different index base he plans to use (CPI instead of wages). If upon retirement you benefits are increased at a rate well below what workers in society are getting, fixed income retirees will loose their buying power. CPI does not reflect the cost of living increase for retirees because it is a market basket average based on value.

For example, part of the CPI is price increases on consumer goods. Dell laptop computers are bought for $1,800.00. Next year you get a laptop for $1,999.00 but it has double the memory, and a 40GIB hard drive which is three times bigger than the current model. The CPI shows no inflation because you supposedly get more value for the money. However, it still costs $199 more and if your income is fixed, this represents a higher cost to you. The same happens with automobiles, TVs, houses, food (fresh head of lettuce vs cut up bagged lettuce). So unless the retired persons income keeps up with the incomes of those around them in the workplace, they loose ground.

Bush has changed the rules and now everyone is going to loose from their social security.

[whistle]

6. Now calculate what you will pay under Bush's plan

i.e. if you earn the maximum of $90,000 a year for 40 years you'll actually pay into Social Security, your share and the employer's share $446,400 ($90,000 * .124 ss% * 40 years). You will then start receiving $36,501 per year (adjusted for inflation) under the current plan, while under Bush's plan you'll get just $23,794 per year. There is an at risk condition though under Bush's proposal and that has to do with the privatized portion. It would yield supposedly $15,916 of the $23,794, which if you played the game wrong you could loose all of it and actually end up with only $7,878 guaranteed. That would be almost a $29,000 per year difference.

This is a no brainer $36,501 guaranteed or $7,878 guaranteed with up to $15,916 leaving you still short by almost $13,000 per year. Bush says you get to keep a nest egg, but the nest egg is paid back to the fund so whats the deal?

Now, I would be willing to do one of the following:

A. Increase the social security contribution, putting the increase in contribution toward the nest egg that I get to keep and pass on to my heirs

B. Increase the cap fund say from $90,000 immediately to $250,000, get the program trust fund stable, then allow a limited portion of contributions to go into a private account for the nest egg

C. Make the cap fund unlimited so that all income is tapped for social security, establish the base trust fund, then allow increments of limited private investments to provide the nest-eggs

D. Allow voluntary limits to benefit draws (if at retirement I don't need all of the money, because I have a retirement plan, or am able to work longer) so that those funds could go into the nest egg.

I agree that savings must be increased, but why must only the wealthy be able to save, while the rest of us have to consume or forfeit what we are entitled to?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. Pardon my ignorance but I read there R. age moves up to 67

for those born after 1960!?!?! I had been estimating 65 like forever. WTF?

Here is the bad news from the SS web site:

Full-retirement age has been 65 for many years. However, beginning with people born in 1938 or later, that age will gradually increase until it reaches 67 for people born after 1959. The following chart shows the steps in which the age will increase.
Year of Birth Full Retirement Age
1937 or earlier 65
1938 65 and 2 months
1939 65 and 4 months
1940 65 and 6 months
1941 65 and 8 months
1942 65 and 10 months
1943-1954 66
1955 66 and 2 months
1956 66 and 4 months
1957 66 and 6 months
1958 66 and 8 months
1959 66 and 10 months
1960 and later 67 http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/ssa.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=140&p_created=955568429&p_sid=qmEpTLyh&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MTMmcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9jYXRfbHZsMT0mcF9jYXRfbHZsMj0mcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD02Nw**&p_li=

On further edit: Found this was passed in the 1983 Social Security Amendments!!! GODAMMIT!

[whistle]

10. Social Security is social insurance not a retirement plan....

...so anyone who relies only on social security will have to make major adjustments when they stop working. In essence, anyone who has had a retirement program with a great company or been saving through an IRA or 401K or some other plan, will do okay with social security there as the safety net. That is what SS has always been for. But, in Bush's engineered recession from 2001 to the present, a lot of people's retirement plans took a beating. I lost about 25% and am only now seeing gains in my private plan. Hopefully, I'll be back to where I was when Clinton left office, by the time I retire in about four years. But, that means that under the Bush cabal, I have stood still as far as retirement, but also in wages, I've taken a cut. In the meantime, everything has gone up double digits, so I'm actually loosing ground. If Bush gets his SS program passed, then we will be floating without a boat or a life preserver!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

11. Well, for some it is all they have

glad to hear you have more than the minimum, but sorry to hear you could have been doing even better.
I am just amazed that I had never known about the increase to 67 years. I wonder how many others were not aware?

[WLKjr]

9. 4,715 down 36%!

damn, that would suck from 15000 a year.