Americans want to raise payroll taxes and Social Security benefits
Seventy-three years ago today, the first Social Security checks went out to beneficiaries. The anniversary comes at a difficult time for the program. It narrowly escaped a cut floated by the Obama administration in the fiscal cliff negotiations that would have reduced cost-of-living increases going forward. While it’s not in danger anytime soon, it does have a 75-year funding shortfall, one which has even advocates like Nobel laureate economist Peter Diamond calling for its finances to be shored up.
So the National Academy of Social Insurance hired the marketing firm Matthew Greenwald & Associates to conduct a survey of a random sample of Americans* to see how they’d like to see that shortfall closed. The survey used a technique called “trade-off analysis” to see which elements of a potential deal made respondents more or less likely to support it. So if a package with spending cuts and tax increases gets a certain amount of support, and a package with just tax increases gets another amount, you can then analyze those results to figure out the response to spending cut proposals. The survey also explained policies before asking for respondents’ opinions, to avoid getting responses that were basically arbitrary.
The survey found that most major benefit cuts — including chained CPI, means testing and raising the full retirement age to 70 — strongly decreased respondents’ likelihood of supporting a deal. By contrast, revenue-raisers, such as increasing the payroll tax rate or eliminating the cap, elicited strong support and made respondents significantly more likely to support a deal. More mild measures, like raising the payroll tax cap to include 90 percent of wages, and raising the retirement age to 68, elicited mild support. The only benefit changes that people really liked were benefit increases. The following chart shows what the raw numbers looked like.
It’s always dangerous to put too much faith in public opinion surveys that ask about specific policy questions, even ones like this that preface those questions with explanations of the policy being considered. People will say a lot of things if you just call them up and ask them. What’s more, it’s hard to get policies passed even with the support of the vast majority of the country when monied interests oppose them. As Martin Gilens has documented in his book Affluence and Influence, politicians act on the preferences of low- and middle-income people only very rarely, especially when their views are opposed to those of upper-income people. “Let’s raise taxes considerably on people making over $110,000″ — which is what raising the cap on Social Security amounts to — seems to fall in that camp. But the survey does serve as a useful indication of the public’s feelings on how best to solve the long-term funding gap.
One more thing — the study also asked people if they think Social Security is in crisis. Given politicians’ and journalists’ fear-mongering on the subject, it’s not too shocking that 57 percent said yes. Then the survey conductors told respondents how much taxes would have to go up to close the gap. That dropped the number to 74 percent, as the following chart shows.
That’s an important reminder of just how elite-driven peoples’ views on topics like this are.
* One weakness in the poll’s methodology, brought up by readers, is that it culls from a preexisting survey group, randomly sampling them rather than, say, everybody in the phonebook. So keep that in mind.
Americans shocked to learn that there isn’t actually a Social Security crisis
A survey shows that deficit fear-mongering works, but it's overcome by simple counter-arguments BY ALEX PAREENE
The Washington Post’s WonkBlog has a scoop: People don’t want to cut Social Security!
The post concerns a recent survey that is actually pretty useful, in that it supports what should already be common sense: People have been led to believe that Social Security faces a crisis in funding. When you tell people some proposals for fixing it, they a) overwhelmingly choose to fund it more generously and b) decide that the program actually does not face any sort of crisis at all. A marketing firm hired by the National Academy of Social Insurance surveyed a random sampling of Americans and discovered that what people want is to raise taxes on rich (and regular!) people in order to fund more Social Security benefits, which is a good idea because the program is currently pretty stingy by international standards and Americans don’t actually have pensions anymore.
For those unfamiliar with Social Security, it is a modest national social insurance program that helps prevent our nation’s old people from starving in the streets, as many of them used to. It is not terribly progressive in its redistribution and it is overwhelmingly funded by the middle classes rather than the rich, but both of those factors have helped shield the program from the existential threats that programs intended explicitly for the poor face each time Republicans or neoliberal Democrats get the hankering for some reform. Politicians from both parties still regularly run on a platform of “ending welfare” and “strengthening Social Security.”
Despite the staggering popularity and undeniable success of Social Security, a lot of political figures are obsessed with killing it. Some people want Social Security ended for honest ideological reasons, but most of the loudest voices in favor of “reforming” the program wish to do so because it would make them or their friends a lot of money by effectively forcing all Americans to gamble their retirements on the fluctuations of the giant Wall Street casino.*
There’s also this common Washington thing where if a certain proposal is hugely unpopular with everyone in the country besides a tiny wealthy elite, supporting that proposal is considered “serious” and “bold” and “brave.” So despite it being a horrible and unpopular idea, proposals to weaken or effectively eliminate Social Security come up all the time in discussions of “the deficit.” One common trick is to say we need to rein in “entitlements,” which inexplicably lumps together Social Security with Medicare, another hugely popular program that, unlike Social Security, is going to cost more and more money to maintain in the medium term. Another common argument is to say that the program will face a shortfall in many years, making it urgently necessary to … cut benefits, to make sure the program “survives.”
The deficit fear-mongering succeeded in getting 57 percent of survey respondents to believe that Social Security is a “crisis or significant problem,” until they learned that minor tax increases would make it totally sustainable for 75 years, at which point 74 percent of Americans were like “Oh, really? Then it seems fine, why don’t they ever put it like that on the news.” (That is not an exact quote from the survey.)
This news will presumably enrage and baffle Joe Scarborough, because everyone he knows knows that we must Do Something About Entitlements.
* (my emphasis)
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God@The Tweet of God
"
Americans shocked to learn that there isn’t actually a Social Security crisis
A survey shows that deficit fear-mongering works, but it's overcome by simple counter-arguments
BY ALEX PAREENE ... "
Just another example of the Big Lie; Republicans have been lying about the 'crisis' of Social Security for so long people have started to believe it. The truly evil part is they aren't trying to fix it they are trying to destroy it.
(A) How could it possibly be surprising to see that most Americans want the Social Security crisis resolved by GETTING SOMEONE ELSE (anyone but ME) TO PAY MORE? Is this not the new American reverse-altruism? Isn't this the philosophy that won the election for our beloved President?
(B) One wonders why the President threatened not so long ago that if the debt ceiling were not raised, peoples' SS checks might be in jeopardy. It seems to me that the Social Security Trust Fund has a positive balance in the TRILLIONS! And furthermore, the Federal government's annual intake is more than enough to pay for SS and debt service. So why would SS checks be in danger?
Could it be that the Social Security Trust Fund is nothing but a FUCKING MIRAGE, floated by liberal politicians?
Or it means the federal government wouldn't have enough money on hand to back the payments. Not that they don't have the money stored away in other forms.
Just another example of the Big Lie; Republicans have been lying about the 'crisis' of Social Security
LOL
If we're going to talk about the "Big Lies" on Social Security, how about we talk about the fact that the Democratic Party has run on the "If you elect the Republicans, they're going to take away Grandma's Social Security and throw her out in the street" platform in every single election cycle, Presidential and Congressional, since 1964?
dgs49 wrote:(A) How could it possibly be surprising to see that most Americans want the Social Security crisis resolved by GETTING SOMEONE ELSE (anyone but ME) TO PAY MORE? Is this not the new American reverse-altruism? Isn't this the philosophy that won the election for our beloved President?
They are advocating increasing the payroll tax rate which will effect them.
rubato wrote:Fewer people in poverty when they are elderly actually saves you money. Even if you don't care about reducing human misery.
yrs,
rubato
I am preparing for when I am elderly, more should do the same rather than have a new SUV every three years.
Sorry, I have no sympathy for many. They should make better choices now rather than burden others later.
aka, take some personel responsibility.
And if not, there are always the prisons and workhouses. What, are there no prisons, are there no workhouses? Well then, perhaps we should just let them die?
Sorry, I couldn't resist. Face it, it is not only because people don't plan that they fail, they are often overwhelmed by circumstances--job losses, medical bills, collapse of the stock market, etc. I don't think it too much to collect taxes to insure everyone has at least a subsistance living if all else fails. I've seen significant tax burdens for far less benefit. I'd love to have even a fraction of what our latest foreign policy adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan cost us to help provide this support--at least there is a benefit there.
So, rubato, please be clear. Are you saying that there IS A SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND?
Inquiring minds want to know.
And by the way, nobody is seeking an increase in the payroll tax RATE. They are talking about removing the cap, which only affects those with earned incomes over whatever the current number is, but not the vast majority of the population. O.P.M.
job losses, medical bills, collapse of the stock market, etc.
As was I (some of my own fault) but I still drive the 11 year old car, and scrimp and save what I can. I think more should instead of counting on soc sec to get them through as they are in for a rude awakening.
I don't think it too much to collect taxes to insure everyone has at least a subsistance living if all else fails.
I don't disagree with that.
They are talking about removing the cap, which only affects those with earned incomes over whatever the current number is
dgs49 wrote:And by the way, nobody is seeking an increase in the payroll tax RATE. They are talking about removing the cap, which only affects those with earned incomes over whatever the current number is, but not the vast majority of the population. O.P.M.
From my opening post in this thread:
You really are a compulsive liar, aren't you?
And regarding the payroll tax cap: when Social Security was repaired under Reagan in 1983, the cap was set such that 90% of income was subject to SS taxes. Changes in demographics were taken into account, but they failed to predict the incredible increase in income inequality. As a result of the rich getting most of the gains in income since 1983, the share of income subject to SS taxes fell from 90% to 84%. We should raise the cap to $180,000 to get it back up to 90%--or probably even higher to make up for all the years it was set too low.
Remember when Ronald Reagan, Alan Greenspan, Bob Dole and Tip O’Neill fixed Social Security forever? Good times.
Claude Pepper, Dan Rostenkowski and Robert Michel were there too. (Barry Thumma – AP)
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God@The Tweet of God
I think more should instead of counting on soc sec to get them through as they are in for a rude awakening.
So what you are saying is people should just say, "Well, I've been paying FIOCA taxes year after year based on the promise of a meager (but guaranteed) pension when I retire (as well as some other current benefits, like surivivor support if I should die) but now I should just forget about that. Kind of like saying, I paid into a retirement annuity for years, but now the managers insist they can't pay so I shoudl just shut up and accept that I threw my money away". Why should people do that instead of insisting on what they were promised when their payments began?
rube, are you really this stupid? PLease quote a single government official - elected, hired, or appointed, who has proposed raising the FICA tax RATE.
Big RR, what EXACTLY, were the American people promised? SS was NEVER sold as a retirement income that would be sufficient to live on. NEVER. It is a SUPPLEMENT to your own retirement and pension. And for most who are receiving it now it is damn generous. Furthermore, if you have been reasonably prudent during your working life, you should retire with no debt, barring extraordinary circumstances. So a 50% reduction in income SHOULD NOT be a crisis of any kind.
If you have lived your working life on the assumption that you could live on SS after you retire, then you are a fool - and not because the Gub'mint is going to "break its promise" to senior citizens, but because you were not paying attention.
Generous? the latest data I could find on the SSI website shows an average monthly benefit of $1230 as of 2012, which comes to less than $15,000 a year. Hardly enough to live on comfortably, or even simply if that's all you have. Hardly generous by any conceivable standard I can think of, but a return on what was paid into the fund for one's entire working life (and in line with what the payments have been for the working lives of most). and you want to reduce it to around $7000 a year?
