Promises from Social Security are dependable
Social Security is part of almost every older American’s life. It’s the dependable check in the bank every month.
As President Bush has said, “For more than six decades it has protected our elderly against poverty and assured young people of a more secure future. It must continue to do this important work for decades to come.”
Today, about 32 million retired workers and their family members get monthly Social Security retirement benefits. That’s nine out of 10 Americans who are age 65 or older. In Tennessee, approximately 991,000 workers and their families receive retirement benefits.
The benefit payments aren’t a fortune, but they can be invaluable to retirees. For workers with average earnings who retire at age 65 in 2002, the monthly Social Security retirement benefits are about $1,080. And each year there is a cost-of-living adjustment that preserves the purchasing power of the benefit payments for retirees and their families.
These are financial facts of life that will not change for anyone who is now retired and getting Social Security benefits ? or for anyone who is nearing retirement age. The latest Social Security Board of Trustees Report, in fact, says the Social Security trust funds will be able to pay all benefits that are owed until 2041.
This means, for example, any 55-year-old working today would be able to retire and get full benefit payments until he or she was 94 years old. And even then, with no changes in the current system, Social Security could still pay about 73 cents of every dollar in benefits owed.
However, the current system must be strengthened so that the children and grandchildren of today’s older Americans will receive retirement benefits from Social Security. That’s why there are so many headlines about Social Security in the nation’s papers, why a blue-ribbon Commission on Strengthening Social Security has proposed improvements and why the Commission called for a year of discussion about the future of Social Security.
But the discussion is about the long-range future of the program. Social Security Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart has said, “Regardless of what proposal you look at in terms of reform, I want to reassure retirees and near-retirees that they will not have a reduction in benefits.”
And she noted that the very first principle that President Bush established when he named the Commission was that “promises made to current retirees must be kept.”