Social Security and FIRE

[CaliforniaMan]

So at 57 I and DW(58) are supposedly going to get full benefits at least while SS remains solvent. Just how sure are we Politics and SS solvency aside the longer the National deficit and inequity in income distribution grow the higher the likelihood that SS and any other government administered entitlements will become subject to MEANS TESTING. That would put a quick kink in many of our plans. By definition those of us who can FIRE are likely to be prime targets for benefit cuts. No one will care that you achieved what you did by LBYM and working harder than most. We will be lumped with the "evil 1%" because on paper looking at $$ only we are.

Working harder was okay but you were supposed to spend every last dollar! Consumer spending is one of the largest driving forces in the economy. How dare you save! Yes you were evil now you must pay for your inequity!

Actually long ago, in my late 20s when I started saving for retirement in a tax advantaged account I used to wonder what the government would do with all the money the savers were saving. Because clearly the majority were not saving and governments tend to tax where the money is. But then again, we are older, and older people vote. So most likely if the take increases, it will be on the newcomers. The old rates will be grandfathered. Or maybe not.

 

[gauss]

The problem with MEANS TESTING Social Security is that it could then be spun as, depending on how aggressively this is done, just another welfare program.

With the progressive nature of the the payment formula (ie the majority of the benefits are accrued fairly early in a career) not much will be saved by denying a segment of the population their benefit.

-gauss

 

[Bestwifeever]

We did not include a penny of SS when we first started roughly calculating our potential retirement income maybe 25 years ago, since the ER date was too far away to have any feel for what SS might have been. Now? We have not taken SS yet, at 63 and 65, but we do know we will be adding it to the income streams of pension and the IRA dividends and capital gains we currently take.

Means testing is one of many things I don't feel I have any control over--if it happens, it happens, and we will deal with it then. If it doesn't happen, we won't gave spent time worrying about it.