SOCIAL SECURITY IS UNDER ATTACK - KEEP YOU HAND ON YOUR WALLET

There is an ever-growing movement among national politicians to severely cut Social Security benefits.  And the people you might expect to keep their finger in the dike are stuffing dynamite under the dam!

Like Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL.) who said that raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 or 72 "would be a positive thing" because being are living longer and being more productive.  Age 65 has always been the traditional "full retirement age" for Social Security.  Ten years ago, the age was raised from 1 to 3 years by Congress.  Now, they want to raise it again.

 Alarmists, like Senator Shelby, overstate the problem.  With no changes, Social Security retirement will pay full benefits until 2037 and close to full benefits (once inflation is accounted for) for decades after that. Minor changes — including adjusting the rate of benefit growth for the richest beneficiaries and modest tax increases — can ensure full solvency for the program for the next 75 years, complete with benefit increases for the most vulnerable retirees.

Shelby, though, would prefer to just slash benefits for everybody to make his numbers add up. Here’s what his “positive” change would mean for retirees:
— As the Economic Policy Institute calculated, raising the retirement age to 70 would cut benefits for the average retiree by 19 percent, which amounts to about $35,419.
— As the Center for Economic and Policy Research found, if current trends in inequality continue, raising the retirement age to 70 would result in those born in 1973 and after having a shorter retirement than those born in 1912.
Plus, increasing the retirement age in response to America’s rising life expectancy ignores the fact that life expectancy gains have almost entirely benefited rich workers. Low- and middle-income workers haven’t seen the same gains.

Tell Senator Shelby and the other jellyfish in Congress to stop playing with your Social Security retirement benefits.  The American people will not see slashing their retirement while collecting higher and higher FICA taxes as "positive."

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