By Robert Romano

Baby Boomers are retiring faster than the population of 16-to-64-year-olds is increasing, an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows, with 3.2 million more 65-years-old-or-older Americans leaving the civilian labor force since Jan. 2020.

Comparatively, the population of 16-to-64-year-olds has only increased by 1.5 million since Jan. 2020 to its current level of 207.2 million.

As a result, the size of the U.S. labor force has actually shrunk since Covid began, from 164.4 million to its current level of about 163.9 million.

Not much more is needed to explain the current labor shortage situation in the U.S., with job openings increasing in the U.S. by almost 3.6 million — a bit more than the 3.2 million retirees leaving the labor force — since Jan. 2020, from 7.1 million to the current 10.7 million.

And while job openings are definitely sinking in the current volatile economic climate as the U.S. economy falls into recession, long term this trend is hard to ignore, for it seems to indicate that as Baby Boomers continue retiring en masse, jobs that were once performed simply will no longer be.

The implication is that means businesses will reach the outer edges of productivity, have a need to expand by hiring new recruits, but overall being unable to do so and therefore be unable to meet demand. That’s how the labor shortage have quickly and readily become a production shortfall and then a supply crisis that does not appear to be abating.

In short, the economy wants to grow — but it can’t. At least, not at the rate that it would otherwise grow were the labor shortages not a problem.

And now, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) is proposing twin pieces of legislation that would simultaneously, according to Gosar, mean “no taxation for Social Security benefits” and would also allow Americans nearing retirement age to keep working without being penalized over their benefits with punitive tax rates.

In an interview with Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning on Aug. 21, Gosar laid out his plan, stating, “Why not allow people to have extra income? Now, currently there is this rule that if you’re below retirement age, for every dollar you make over the allowed amount, they take one out every two dollars with tax, a 50 percent tax. If you’re retirement age, they’ll take one out of three.”

Gosar added, “So, why should that be? Because you’re trying to help out yourself by having a second job, why does it hurt? You’ve put away these benefits, they should be there for you…”

Gosar has got a point. Double taxing Social Security benefits is a powerful disincentive from continuing to work, a policy that was designed to get people to leave the U.S. labor force. But now, with a massive retirement wave more than fully underway, life-extending medical care and declining fertility, it is leaving the U.S. labor force short-handed.

This can be addressed by allowing those seniors who want to continue to work to do so without any further penalty. Similar policies have been used in Japan, where demographic decline is even more steep and further ahead than in the U.S. and Europe, to incentivize seniors who are able to keep working, staving off deflation and a shrinking economy.

Ultimately, additional fertility and marriage incentives will likely be needed just to maintain population stability, or certainly to stave off population collapses along the lines that billionaire Elon Musk has been warning about. Short-term, fixing Social Security so that seniors are no longer taxed for their earnings and for trying to work longer, can help fill gaps in the labor force while the next generation is growing up.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2022/08/u-s-rep-paul-gosar-no-taxation-for-social-security-benefits-and-allow-seniors-to-work-more-without-penalty/

Cartoon:

By A.F. Branco

Click here for a higher resolution version.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2022/08/cartoon-shell-game/

 

Gayle Trotter: Midterm Elections Offer Voters a Referendum on a Record of Failure

By Gayle Trotter

Things didn't have to be this way. Candidate Joe Biden promised he would unite America and "build back better." Americans know our country is in serious trouble, and the looming midterm elections will be a referendum on the failed leadership of the current administration.

The Biden administration's ineptitude resulted in the death of 13 brave American service members during the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan. Every week we are reminded of this glaring mistake. On Sunday, the brother of one of those 13 killed himself near a memorial for the fallen heroes.

Last week, we learned that the Taliban is so firmly back in charge in Afghanistan that a top al-Qaeda leader thought he could safely meander out in the open in Kabul. The military obliterated Ayman al-Zawahiri in a hellfire missile strike on behalf of an administration led by the one man who opposed the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

The administration proudly nominated a Supreme Court Justice who cannot say what a woman is. Meanwhile, Taliban thugs beat back Afghan women (you know, adult female humans) marching for their rights.

That's just one part of the world that is more dangerous due to the Biden administration's failed policies.

Europe is another victim of the administration's ineptitude. In private, European officials draw a straight line from the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to an emboldened Putin attacking Ukraine.

The administration's policies have weakened NATO's deterrence against Russian aggression. Nuclear threats from top Russian officials now echo the alarming rhetoric of the Cold War.

Meanwhile, China threatens Taiwan and the entire balance of power in the Pacific Rim. Our allies in that region feel less secure and less inclined to trust American resolve.

Iran is now plotting assassinations of Americans and encouraging violent attacks against opponents of the regime, such as the horrific Salman Rushdie attack. While Iran attempts to wage war on our soil, the outlaw state receives friendly overtures from the administration.

Our domestic situation fares no better. While Mr. Biden begs for oil from despots in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, his administration works to upend our energy independence. Americans pay more at the pump while the administration promotes tax credits for solar panels and electric cars that don't begin to replace the energy we once had to fuel a prosperous country.

The president seems to think he has the power to change the weather, but cannot even marshal the logistics to give American moms baby formula to feed their infants.

Families have seen the hard work of generations destroyed by runaway inflation. The administration's disastrous economic policies have wrecked the stock market and promise more politically correct regulations, less innovation, and declining prosperity.

The administration seems determined to harm American families. Promoting taxpayer-funded abortion and refusing conscience-based exemptions for those who would rather not participate in ending human life, the administration follows the extreme Left rather than letting voters in each state decide abortion policy for themselves.

Wielding government power to enforce conformity to the Democrats' platform is a recurring theme of the Biden administration. Its most recent legislative initiative will hire 87,000 new IRS agents to go after regular Americans. Some humility might have been expected from the crowd who, before the 2012 election, weaponized the IRS against conservative groups. No such luck.

And that's not even to mention the fact that the administration openly invited violent criminals, human traffickers, drug dealers, and scofflaws to flood our southern border.

The Biden administration has made the world more dangerous. Its policies make our neighborhoods more dangerous. It emboldens criminals, both the home-grown ones and those who crossed the border, and attacks the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves.

In all this, there is one thing we can do to make our world and our neighborhoods less dangerous. We can go to the polls and vote to reject the failed policies of this administration. That might be one way that Joe Biden can unite us after all.

To view online: https://www.newsweek.com/midterm-elections-offer-voters-referendum-record-failure-opinion-1734599