|
John --
Before we dive in today, we're making a
slight change. Over the past few months, we've been coming to you each
week asking your thoughts on all the biggest issues facing America and
calling it Controlling What You Can.
Today, we're officially rebranding this
initiative.
Instead of focusing on presenting changes
that we think are achievable, we instead want to think about the
future where America continues to grow and become the best version of
itself. We think of democracy as a verb, and that means everyone who
loves America needs to work to improve it.
As we think about this positive vision
for America, we're going to keep asking ourselves some key questions.
How can we improve our our communities? How can we build better lives
for ourselves? What do we owe to each other (our families, neighbors,
communities, country)? How can we plan for the unforeseen? How can we
build a just, fair, and honest government that represents Americans?
It's going to take Forward
Thinking from us all, so that's the new name of
this collaboration with each of you. Welcome to it: let's get
thinking!
Back to the topic at hand, this week, we
asked you about Social Security reforms.
Looking at the results, two things stick
out to us.
First, the top two answers both reflect a
general desire to focus the program on helping low-income individuals.
The program was designed to help keep America's elderly out of
poverty, and it has an outsized effect at lower incomes. 80% of you
believed that the tax cap should be eliminated, and benefits should be
reduced or eliminated for the wealthy, suggesting that you think those
at the top end of the income distribution should pay more into it,
while benefits should primarily go to those who need them in
retirement. This is reinforced by the relatively low selection of
increasing the SS tax rate across the board, reflecting that most of
you believe it's only those at the top of the tax bracket who should
be contributing more.
Second, there was more than a baseline
level of support for raising the retirement age. We'll dig more into
notes around that below, in our summary of the responses.
Social Security reform is complex, and so
there were many comments left to dive into more detail:
Privatization and Opt-Out Proposals
- Many highlighted that their main issue with the program is that
it's managed by the government. A significant segment of the responses
suggested that money paid into the system be put into private
retirement accounts.
- Others called for an opt-out process, allowing individuals to
leave the system altogether. This would decrease the inflow of cash to
fund it while also decreasing the amount of money that would need to
be paid out.
Raising the Retirement Age
- For those that selected raising the retirement age, it was noted
that we have a longer healthy life expectancy than we did when the
program was created. Raising the retirement age, you argued, would
have people contribute longer and withdraw for less time, thus
alleviating some of the financial pressure on the system.
Replace Social Security with Something
Else
- Some of you even called for the end of the program, shifting the
resources to something such as a UBI or a flat pension for everyone.
That's certainly ambitious!
|
