Ah, finally found the other graph I was looking for, or at least a version of it, from the Congressional budget office.

 

 

The Axes are a bit funny, so bear with me. The X Axis is the year of birth of a random person when they would begin receiving social security benefits. The Y axis is the benefits they would receive their first year of eligibility in Social Security. In other words, the X axis translates to basically the year you start receiving Social Security benefits; the 2 lines are identical until about 1977, and a person born in 1977 would begin receiving Social Security benefits in roughly 2042 under current law, which is the date of the projected trust fund exhaustion.

 

The key feature of this graph is to compare both lines to the current benefits. Even in the event that the Social Security trust fund is totally exhausted in 2042 as predicted by the Trustee reports, the program would still be paying out a higher rate of benefits (in today's dollars) at that date than it is paying out today. Even if the trust fund is used up, with the pessimistic version of the projections and no change ever happening to the funding side, at current tax rates people retiring in 2042 will still receive a higher payout than people retiring in 2006.

Edited December 20, 200619 yr by Balta1701

Even if the trust fund is used up, with the pessimistic version of the projections and no change ever happening to the funding side, at current tax rates people retiring in 2042 will still receive a higher payout than people retiring in 2006.

 

 

absolutely impossible. you're reading the numbers wrong on this entire issue. there is no way that, without a substantial tax increase, social security can survive after exhaustion of the trust. there is no way. no financial experts are reaching the same conclusions as you. the US government even admits there will need to be a large increase in payroll tax to handle this.

 

well, we agree to disagree on this one. no need to keep arguing IMHO.

If we had terrorist attacks on the US, what would the world stage matter to the American people. Not a damn thing.

 

Afghanistan? Iraq?

Afghanistan? Iraq?

 

I don't understand what you are asking, but I stand by my statement regardless.