Like most West Coast counties, Clatsop and Pacific are rich in retirees.
At last count, there were 9,345 age 65-plus Social Security recipients in Pacific County — approaching 40% of the population — and 11,745 in Clatsop County — nearly 30% of the total. Nationwide, about 22% of residents get some form of Social Security — including the spouses and minor children of people who paid into the program.
Social Security has been in the news, though buried beneath the ongoing storm of wars, Trump controversies and other important distractions. We in these older-than-average communities ought to pay close attention and raise a ruckus about Social Security’s very fixable problems.
The most immediate news was reported earlier this month by various national media outlets. This in the Washington Post (tinyurl.com/WaPo-SS-story) was representative:
“The trust funds for Social Security and Medicare will run out of money in less than a decade… the programs’ trustees warned that the funds’ depletion date is significantly closer than predicted a year ago. If Congress does not overhaul the programs’ financing, automatic cuts will slash Social Security benefits by 23% and Medicare hospital benefits by 11% in 2033.”
In case anyone is under some illusion, 2033 is not that far off.
(If, as for most of us, Social Security’s broad outlines are a little fuzzy to you, check out tinyurl.com/Pew-Social-Security from the Pew Research Center for an authoritative overview.)
One of the simplest ways to avoid a drastic cutback in Social Security checks — which currently average $1,989.74 in Oregon and $2,099.38 in Washington — is to raise or eliminate the cap on what high-earners pay into the system.
“Today, workers and employers each pay 6.2 percent of wages to finance Social Security, but there’s a cap on taxable wages [ currently $176,100. So while 94 percent of workers pay Social Security tax on every paycheck, most of the earnings of the top 1 percent, and especially the top 0.1 percent, escape being taxed. Congress can avoid future cuts and improve benefits for those who need a boost by ‘scrapping the cap,’” according to the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Anyone who makes that much or more a year can afford to pay a bit extra to keep this essential all-American system on track.
We all have favorite targets for blame and ridicule for the failure to deal with this slow-moving crisis, be it congressional Republicans intent on safeguarding the rich or Democrats too disorganized to effectively stand up for working people. Repeated near-catastrophes involving the national debt limit, ballooning deficits and other asinine budget shenanigans have become ridiculously common.
Those who closely watch the situation expect an eventual last-minute reprieve — probably spurred by the fact older citizens are the most dedicated voters.
“Congress will act. The depletion date [2033] is really an action-forcing event,” Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a lobby that advocates taxing the rich to fund more generous benefits, told the Post.
We who rely on it should not wait eight years to demand action.