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Great depression and social security
Social security great depression
Great depression and social security
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Social Security is a federally administered social insurance program. The program was created in 1935; it was designed to mitigate the financial damage caused by the Great Depression. Social Security provides monthly cash stipends to the disabled and the elderly. As of December 2013, 58 million people were receiving Social Security payments (Social). Social Security is financially unsustainable because there is a significant difference in the number of retired and the number of workers paying into the system. This high retiree to worker ratio is wreaking havoc on the financial stability of Social Security. Fixing Social Security would require an increase in the Social Security tax, more stringent disability eligibility requirements, and a raise in the payroll ceiling.
Social Security currently receives funding from the Social Security tax; this tax currently stands at 6.2% for employers and workers. Social Security spends $1.3 trillion dollars per year on benefits for the disabled and the elderly (Reischauer). In order to keep Social Security’s deficit from skyrocketing, taxes must be increased. The current aforementioned tax rate accounts for $731 billion dollars in annual revenue accrued by the Social Security Administration. A 1.4% increase in the Social Security tax would keep Social Security funded indefinitely. This proposal was reiterated in a report from the National Academy of Social Insurance,
If tax rates were raised from the 6.2 percent paid by both workers and employer (a total of 12.4 percent) to 7.7 percent each (or 15.4 percent in total). In other words, the deficit would be eliminated if workers and employers each paid 1.5 percent of wages more in Social Security taxes.
The idea of raising the Social Security ta...
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...d if Congress stops engaging in debilitating partisan wrangling.
Works Cited
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Reich, Robert. "What's the 'Chained CPI,' Why It's Bad for Social Security and Why the White House Shouldn't Be Touting It (VIDEO)." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 04 Apr. 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
Reischauer, Robert D., and Charles P. Blahous, III. "Social Security." Trustees Report Summary. Social Security Administration, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Service, Jayna Omaye Medill News. "Senate Panel Uncovers Millions in Disability Fraud." USA Today. Gannett, 08 Oct. 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
"Social Security." Benefits for People with Disabilities. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
"Social Security." Benefits in Current Payment Status. Social Security Administration, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
There are millions of Americans affected by social security. These Americans rely on social security to provide them with financial security. Recently President Bush agreed to proposing a method of privatizing the social security program so that in the future the vast reserves of the social security system would not run out nearly as fast. With the always increasing rise in inflation, and the baby boomer generation reaching ages of retirement fairly soon, this is an issue that needs to be dealt with correctly and rapidly. The way the president is handling the situation is definitely the right way to do it. There are many things and ways in which to do it wrong, but the president seems to be pointing the plans of social security in the right direction. The president’s plans of reforming social security are right because the privatization is the best way to go, changing the rules for those who would apply for it increases the savings and makes the money go farther, and working with the distribution of different tax percentages would really make the money go a lot farther.
Throughout the 20th century governmental responsibility has made remarkable progress. One major milestone of the widening of the responsibility of the federal government was it’s making an obligation to care for the elderly and retired in the form of social security. In 1935, the Social Security Act was enacted by the federal government to provide financial security to the elderly, retired citizens in America. Although the federal government first took on this responsibility in 1935, it is still affecting our lives today. However, social security would not have advanced this far without many organizations and individual reformers to begin and improve social security throughout history.
Murray, Sara. “Numbers On Welfare See Sharp Increase.” The Wall Street Journal. 22 Jun. 2009. 20 May. 2012.
Hoberock, Barbara. “Senate panel OKs bill to test welfare recipients for drugs.” Tulsa World(ok) [Serial on the Internet]. Newspaper Source. 04 Feb. 2010. Web. 4 Feb. 2011.
II. Implementing a flat tax without significantly increasing the deficit is impossible without shifting the burden from the rich to the middle-class, instead our current progressive tax policy needs to be changed so that it is simpler and does not allow corporations to abuse the tax loopholes.
Social Security Administration, Social Security Programmes Throughout the World, Washington, 2008/2009; Heymann, J. et all, 2007.
The Social Security Act was enacted in 1935, and since then it has undergone numerous revisions and amendments. Today the act covers a wide range of benefit programs, including Medicare, unemployment compensation, and Supplemental Security Income. The major portion for which the Social Security Act has become known, however, is the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program, or OASDI. While today the OASDI program is most frequently referred to as “Social Security,” it is only a thread in what has been called the “social safety net.” Therefore, throughout this paper, it should be understood that Social Security will be the term used to refer to all its encompassed programs as a group, as a matter of convenience.
United States federal budget. Social Security is the largest entitlement program in the United States. In 2013, the total Social Security expenditures were $1.3 trillion, 8.4% of the $16.3 trillion GNP (SSA.gov). There has been an issue in the White House of either opposing the cut in Social Security spending or advocating for a hike in payments. Expanding Social Security instead of reducing it would benefit seniors, especially considering America’s struggling middle class and that there are more impoverished people than ever before.
"Social Security Should Be Run by the Government" by Institute for America's Future.Capitalism. Noël Merino, Ed. Current Controversies Series. Greenhaven Press, 2010. Institute for America's Future, The Perils of Privatization: Social Security Privatization Cuts Lifetime Benefits; Makes Senior Citizens Vulnerable to Poverty: The Impact in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Institute for America's Future, 2008. Reproduced by permission. .
22. Kennith Davis, "The Birth of Social Security," in Visions of America's Past, ed. William Bryans et al. (Plymouth: Hayden-McNeil Publishing, 2011), 327.
Wheeler, Peter. "Social Security Programs in the United States." Programs in the United States. Social Security Administration, 1 July 1997. Web. 4 May 2014.
Social security, the federal retirement system, is one of the most popular government programs in United State?s history. Today, Social Security benefits are the backbone of the nation's retirement income system. The long road to the successful development of social security began in 1935. Before 1935, very few workers received job pensions. Those workers that were covered never received benefits because they were not guaranteed.
About Fraud. (n.d.). Retrieved from Stop Medicare Fraud The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Department of Justice: http://www.stopmedicarefraud.gov/aboutfraud/index.html
There is much-heated debate on the issues of Social Security today. The Social Security system is the largest government program of income distribution in the United States. People are concerned that they won't see a dime of what they worked so hard to contribute into the Social Security system for so many years. Social Security provides benefits to about forty-three million Americans. Not only to retired workers, but also to their spouses and dependents of the workers who die prematurely. It also provides benefits to disabled workers and their dependents. Social Security appears to most people like a simple retirement saving’s account. After all, you generally contribute through payroll deductions, then get money back after you retire. Nonetheless, Social Security is a complex and intricate communal program. By design, Social Security involves massive subsidies from the next generation of retirees to the present, from single workers to married couples. Now that the gigantic post World War II baby boomers generation approaches retirement age, there is concern about the consequences it will have on Social Security. There are basically three options, we can do nothing and allow Social Security to run it’s course, revise Social Security, or consider privatization of the system.
Healthcare services have been on the rise for over 10 years now. According to a 2012 consumer alert, the industry provided $2.26 trillion in payments for more than four billion health insurance benefit claims in the year 2011(Fraud in Health Care). The bulk of the claims and the mainstream of fraud and abuse stem from the Medicare system professionals, who are knowledgeable about the process and persuade new clients into handing over their pertinent information in hopes of deception and illegitimate claims. Multiple and double billing, fraudulent prescriptions, are some of the major flaws in this organization that has made the healthcare services industry curdle. (AGHAEGBUNA, 2011) This is a non-violet crime and is often committed by very educated people including business people, hospital, doctors, and administrators.