Nancy Altman wants to Turn Social Security into Welfare for All
AB writer, commenter and Social Security expert, Dale Coberly provides a different take on whether “President Biden Should Direct the Social Security Administration to Stop Penalizing Marriage.”
~~~~~~~~
Nancy Altman wrote the following piece, which appeared in PROGRESS AMERICA, on December 16, 2022 as well as Common Dreams. I thought it needed a response because I regard it as dangerous to Social Security. I have inserted my responses interlinear below embolden.
Nancy Altman Begins here:
Altman: Friend, I want to tell you a story―it’s a little long, but I think when we get to the end, it will be clear: President Biden should direct the Social Security Administration to stop penalizing marriage.
Me: Social Security does not penalize marriage, but saying “penalize marriage” is a good way to rouse people to your side. In fact Social Security gives benefits to wives who do not contribute to Social Security, nor do their husbands contribute for them. Presumably the designers of Social Security recognized a need to protect wives and protect marriage as important to the national welfare.
Altman: Lori Long was diagnosed in childhood with a rare disease that requires extensive medical treatments, supports, and services. She receives Social Security, earned for her by her now-deceased parents. Medicare and Medicaid provide her health insurance.
Me: Note Lori Long appears never to have contributed to Social Security, but she receives benefits because her parents did. This appears to me to “protect marriage” as it grants benefits to children, though I don’t know if it requires the children’s parents to have been legally married.
Altman: Given the millions of beneficiaries and recipients who are affected by the marriage penalties, it is highly inefficient to require them to assert their religious claims individually to obtain relief.
Me: Note “marriage penalty” is repeated as if it is an established fact. And now we are asked to feel it is a burden (inefficient) to ask a person to assert their religious claims for relief.
Altman: In 2015, she (Lori) met Mark Contreras. They fell in love, became engaged, and began to plan their wedding—only to discover that marriage would be a death sentence for Ms. Long.
Ms. Long’s doctors have told her that losing the medical treatments, supports, and services which she receives from Medicare and Medicaid would be life-threatening. (Those same comprehensive treatments, supports, and services are generally not provided by private health insurance and are prohibitively expensive without insurance.)
The Social Security Act requires that, if Ms. Long and Mr. Contreras marry, her Social Security and Medicare benefits terminate the month before the date of their marriage. (The only exception is if Ms. Long were to marry another Social Security beneficiary, which Mr. Contreras is not. Nor would the benefits be reinstated if Mr. Contreras died or if they divorced.)
Me: Ah, Ms. Long’s benefits will be terminated if she marries someone not covered (not paying into? not receiving benefits?) by Social Security. And benefits would not be reinstated if they divorced . . . so much for protecting marriage.
Altman: As heartbreaking as their inability to marry is, it is also against the law. It violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), which prohibits any application of federal law that substantially burdens religious freedom.
Me Heartbreaking, inability to marry . . . but benefits continue if she does not marry. But wait . . . substantially burdens religious freedom? Oh, Lori’s religion prohibits her from living in sin. Well, is it better to die married or to live in sin. I think Jesus would know the answer to that. I don’t see a substantial burden. Neither do I remember Ms. Altman caring very much about “religious freedom” before this. Perhaps Ms. Long could get a dispensation from her church? My objection to this is the heartbreaking assumption there are no alternatives available to Ms. Long.
Altman: Lori Long isn’t alone in this dilemma. President Biden has the power to direct the Social Security Administration to end the marriage penalty. Sign here to tell him to use that power!
Me: But ending this particular “religious freedom” if on a large scale, would add to the costs of Social Security without adding to its revenue. Ms. Altman is a long time “friend of Social Security,” but she has recently expressed a desire to turn Social Security into welfare . . . that is, “make the rich pay.” Ms Altman knows, FDR deliberately designed SS not to be welfare “so no damn politician can take it away from them.” In her book she tells a story about FDR personally intervening to prevent his social security commission from including an eventual resort to general taxes: “making the rich pay.”
Altman: Unquestionably, the termination of benefits upon marriage is an overwhelming burden on Ms. Long, who has been a devout, practicing Christian throughout her life and believes marriage is a holy sacrament. She and her fiancé want to have children, but having children out of wedlock conflicts with their religious beliefs. They attend services where married couples are asked to stand and are blessed—and they are unable to receive that blessing. Moreover, as a Sunday school teacher, a Vacation Bible School teacher, and a leader in the youth ministry, she believes that she should model proper behavior to her students—including marriage.
Me: Unquestionably. And there is no other way to resolve this dilemma. I have long advocated that the religion-hating part of the Progressive movement should show more respect for the beliefs of others. But I have never been fond of using claims of “religious freedom” as a ploy to gain political advantage.
Altman: The only exception RFRA allows is if the government has a compelling interest and, even then, the government loses unless there is no other less burdensome way to achieve its goal. There is no compelling reason to force Ms. Long—or anyone else—to choose between their religious beliefs and the benefits for which they otherwise qualify.
Me oops, somehow we slid from the government having a compelling interest in overruling claims of religious freedom . . . such as the life of the person . . . to having a compelling reason to force that person to choose. between claiming religious freedom or collecting benefits. [on rereading my comment here, I am not sure that either Altman or I are clear about just what compelling interest we are talking about. I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.]
Altman: RFRA forbids the burden on Ms. Long’s religious freedom by the potential termination of her Social Security benefits, just as the Supreme Court held that the withholding of unemployment benefits was an unconstitutional burden on Adell Sherbert’s religious freedom. (The Religious Freedom Restoration Act explicitly restores the religious freedom test set forth in Ms. Sherbert’s decision. The test had been undermined by subsequent decisions.)
In Ms. Sherbert’s case, South Carolina’s Employment Security Commission had denied her claim for unemployment benefits, because Ms. Sherbert, a Seventh-Day Adventist, had refused all positions that required her to work on Saturdays, her Sabbath. The agency had ruled that her desire to observe her Sabbath was not a good enough reason to refuse work that had been offered to her.
The precedent is clear. President Biden MUST use his power to end the marriage penalty for Social Security beneficiaries!
Me: Yes, so clear you don’t have to bother your silly little head about it. we just told you it was clear, didn’t we?
Altman: The South Carolina statute forced Ms. Sherbert to choose between attending Sabbath services and temporary cash benefits; the Social Security Act is forcing Ms. Long to choose between the lifetime, daily sacrament of marriage and the potential loss of her life.
Me: yep. no other choice.
Altman: Tellingly, those burdens are much greater than the burden the Trump Administration found sufficient under RFRA to exempt religious organizations from having to complete a form to escape a requirement of providing contraceptive coverage as part of employer-provided health insurance.
Me: I dunno, providing contraceptive coverage runs into real money. maybe Ms Long could complete a form?
Altman: Unless contraception is against an employer’s religious beliefs, employers are required to include coverage in the health insurance they provide. If contraception is against an employer’s religion, all the Obama administration required was that the employer simply file a form stating that fact. The filing automatically freed employers from the obligation and cost of providing contraceptives. To not penalize the employees, though, the written filing caused the insurance company providing the health insurance to still provide the coverage but absorb the cost itself.
The Trump administration, relying on RFRA, reversed the requirement that employers file the form, on the grounds that the mere filing might make some employers feel complicit. To be clear, no religious organization had to provide its employees with insurance that covered contraception. All a religious organization would have had to do is file a claim one time.
If filing paperwork to avoid a legal obligation is an undue burden on religious liberty, and being pressured by financial need to work on one’s Sabbath is an undue burden, the loss of life-sustaining benefits as a result of Ms. Long’s religiously-motivated decision to marry is without question an undue burden on her religious liberty within the meaning of RFRA.
Accordingly, Ms. Long, who is represented by the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), has just filed a written request asking the Social Security Administration to comply with RFRA and allow her to marry without losing her benefits. SSA should immediately grant this relief—and the Biden administration should do much more.
Me: well, i would be disposed to grant the relief, because i have no religious objection to humanitarian relief from “the law” . . . but it does not follow that Biden should do much more
Altman: The provision in the law that would cause Ms. Long to lose her benefits if she married is only one of a number of anti-marriage provisions in the programs that SSA administers. Supplemental Security Income (SSI), also administered by SSA, . . .
Me: but SSI is welfare and is not Social Security.
Altman: . . . pays two married recipients’ 25 percent less than two other recipients identical in all respects except that they simply live together as roommates. The married couple’s allowable assets are also 25 percent lower. Moreover, SSI recipients can lose life-sustaining Medicaid benefits,
Me: Medicaid is not Social Security.
Altman: . . . along with SSI benefits, if they marry people with even extremely modest income or savings. That is because those resources are automatically attributed to the recipients themselves.
Importantly and heartbreakingly, these rules affect not only the religious freedom of those who receive the benefits, but their chosen partners, their families, and their broader communities. These laws mean that Mr. Contreras, who is not receiving a penny in benefits, is nonetheless prevented from sharing the commitment of marriage with the woman he loves.
Me: Apparently, he is prevented from sharing the house and household expenses as well. Maybe they could marry in secret . . . except of course from the eyes of God?
Altman: At the very least, the Biden administration should publicize that it is removing the marriage penalties of those Social Security beneficiaries and SSI recipients who attest that they are not marrying, despite their religious convictions, because they would lose benefits.
But the Administration should go further. Given the millions of beneficiaries and recipients who are affected by the marriage penalties, it is highly inefficient to require them to assert their religious claims individually to obtain relief. Instead, the administration should start treating all those affected as they now treat unmarried individuals.
Me: ah, there’s the rub: millions of beneficiaries who have not paid into Social Security? Is it making an establishment of religion to exempt “religious” people from taxes . . . or paying their way in general?
Altman: Sign now: Tell the Biden administration to immediately act to protect Social Security benefits from this obscure rule that penalizes marriage!
The Biden administration should immediately announce that adults with disabilities can marry and continue to receive the Social Security benefits their parents have earned for them. It should immediately announce that two SSI recipients who are married will be paid the same level of benefits as unmarried recipients are paid. It should immediately announce that two SSI recipients who are married will have the same higher assets limits that unmarried SSI recipients have.
By taking these bold steps, the Biden administration will be acting in defense of marriage and in support of religion. Using the authority of RFRA to undo marriage penalties is the right public policy and politics. It is pro-marriage, pro-religion, and pro-Social Security.
Thank you,
Nancy Altman: Social Security Works
Me: Social Security will not work when Altman gets through with it. It is Altman who wants to ”do so much more.” She wants to turn Social Security into welfare paying benefits to everyone with a heartbreaking story even if they have never paid into Social Security. This means the workers who have paid for their own benefits will have to pay for the benefits of those who haven’t paid, driving the cost [payroll tax] of SS much higher, or reducing benefits for everyone. Or, by “making the rich pay” for benefits they don’t receive. Which will make even the honest [and sane] rich work to destroy SS entirely.
I don’t want to make any bold assertions here about what Biden MUST do, but Social Security can’t solve every problem. And if people insist that it does, without actually paying the premiums, they will kill it. As designed it does protect milllions and millions of people from falling into poverty. and has done so for over eighty years.
There are welfare programs to help people who have not paid for Social Security. There is no reason to change the very nature of Social Security…which works because it is worker paid insurance and not welfare…in order to help those who haven’t paid for the insurance.
You have a very modest reliable car that gets you to work every day. If you drop a big engine into it, and attach a backhoe to it, you will increase the cost of running it, and it neither get you to work or dig trenches for you.
Or to put it in Altman-speak:
Social Security Works Because it is not welfare.
You MUST tell your congressman . . . in a way he can’t pretend to not hear.
What grabbed my attention was the notion that Ms.Long’s disability condition required treatments, supports and services not generally covered by private insurance. Why aren’t these covered by private insurance plans compliant with ACA, or why are these covered by Medicaid and Medicare if ACA compliance does not require this? Essentially, why aren’t public insurance plans and ACA coverage requirements the same? Depending on Ms. Long’s religious affiliation, there may well be an option of a consecrated sacramental marriage without secular equivalent. But there are potential drawbacks, like no access to civil divorce if things don’t work out, no automatic claim to estates and other impacts probably.
Eric377
Thanks. I thought I mentioned “sacramental marriage” but I did not know there was a name for it.
As for the no access to civil divorce or claims to estates, it would be harder to make a case for heartbreaking burden that requires Social Security to be turned into welfare for all. I do hope Ms Long gets the care she needs.
When I entered the US Army long ago, I took a battery of tests, as all new enlistees do, to try to ferret out personality defects and or determine intelligence, hidden talents, suitability for the military life, willingness to follow ordders, etc. Being psychologically-oriented tests, there was a lot of repetition to insure consistency.
About every tenth question was ‘Are you rugged in up-hill country?’ or a variation thereof, That’s a fond memory for me. I was perhaps anything but, but I knew the correct answer to that question.
This is a country for people who are ‘rugged in up-hill country’, dontchaknow. No others need apply.
(Recently, Microsoft changed its default ‘features’ to perform spell-checking invasively in any app that included text-entry. That can be defeated, by going into ‘Language’ preferences. I did so which explains why there may be some of them in what ever I put up.)
Dobbs,
It was a trick question to test your honesty. You gave the right answer.
As my personal spell checker has failed, I find the computers invasive spell checkers produce bizarre results that make me wish for a complete rethink of the computer revolution.
What does this have to do with this thread? I don’t mind wandering off topic but I couldn’t follow the trail.
Off topic? Sure. That’s why it’s in (). Maybe help others who were as annoyed as I was by the recent ‘enhancement’.
Fred
what does “in 0″ mean. or is that ” ( ) ” ? I was referring to the whole comment, not just the spell check issue.
i don’t mind mind “off topic” so much since I get accused of it every time i think i am getting to the bottom of an issue.
She (I assume) got paid to write that drivel?
Caveat: my spouse’s circumstance is not unlike Ms Long’s, sans the religious nutballery. Thank you for laying it out so eloquently, as I could never approach ~ nothing she (I assume) has to say bears any relationship to our day-to-day experience.
She’s a paid liar … there’s a name for that
Ten Bears
i would not call her a paid liar, though I don’t know how Social Security Works is funded. Ms Altman seems very emotionally committed to the “idea” of Social Security, which she appears to believe means “welfare for all.”
Some Info:
MACPAC People with Disabilities
Ten Bears
i was about to say I found Ms Altman’s level of logic frustrating, but I stopped myself because I find most people’s idea of “logic” totally indequate to the task. This includes my own. Mathematicians and auto mechanics are held to a higer standard of logic than professors generally, and people talking about politics totally. The problem is mostly “unknown facts”, and compounding that is the human inability to keep track of very many facts, and their ability to completely ignore facts.. or logic… that goes against what they have always believed or want to believe. Ms Altman struck me as one of the worst cases…but then I wasn’t thinking about political argument or diplomatic speech at the time. I thought we were trying to understand the available facts and mathematical implications of facts.
Run,
thanks for this. would larger type help?
one issue we did not explore was where does Ms Long’s fiance get his money if he is not covered by Social Security? There is a lot we don’t know about this particular case.
Coberly:
This is a JPEG. I can not make it bigger unless I place it on your post and then it will enlarge. If you click on MACPAC, you can go to where this detail is plus some more info.
Thanks Bill. The computer revolution was wasted on me.
I once heard a panelist say that observing where the panelists agreed was important. In this case I agree with Ms. Altman that our laws and court rulings regarding religion and marriage produce logically inconsistent hash. (not that she presented it that way).
Understanding why some of what she says sounds true helps me to realize at what point I disagree. She has not stepped far enough back. The problem is (as Eric said) in the healthcare system, not in the retirement insurance program.
SS is successful. It is not surprising that some folks would like to expand it to solve other problems. Dale is right to warn against converting SS to welfare.
Could be we need a new program. Call it ‘Secure Socialism’?
Arne:
Would we agree Single Payer as Kip Sullivan advocates here and other places would be a solution?
Run, I’d agree…as long as workers pay for it themselves. Medicare has been ruined by making it half paid by the workers, and half by the general budget.
That gives Congress licence to play with it.
And “pay for it yourself”does not mean pay the full market price whatever your income. The SS “flat tax” with cap works pretty well tp distribute costs fairly.
And no one should pay “market prices.” The trouble with Medicare is that we pay monopoly market prices…about twice as much as people pay in the civilized world. Since health care is “pay or die” with need something with the resources to watch over pricing and the clout to insist on not gouging the customer.
Hard to get when our elected representatives profit from the gouging. But I don’t think Americans are ready to create a “private” health care oversight and bargaining entity, and exercise due vigilance in keeping that from going corrupt.
Dale:
Commercial Insurance pays twice or more than what Medicare pays. Private Payment Rates Are Higher Than Medicare Rates for Hospital and Physician Services. Commercial Healthcare costs administered in a hospital for a litre of Rituxan solution is $28,000. Medicare pays ~$8,000 per dose for me.
How Much More Than Medicare Do Private Insurers Pay? A Review of the Literature.
I gave you a KFF link to read. These are comparisons back to 2017. I know the costs are higher. I am too lazy to look it up.
Run
i am not sure i understand this. i know that medicare pays only about half of what doctors charge. doesn’t change the fact that Amerians pay twice as much for health care per capita as other countries with just as good or better health care.
From what I have seen doctors overbill Medicare so they can get more money. and Medicare does not object. The fact that it “looks like” the gvernment is paying my doctor bill does not quite make me forget that i paid the taxes that the government uses to pay my bill.
I suspect private insurance runs the racket a little differently: they pay the higher price, so the doctors can charge more and that means the customer has to pay more for insurance, so the insurance companies make more money the more the doctors charge. Do not imagine for a minute that it is to the advantage of insurance companies to hold medical costs down.
Dale:
Traditional Medicare (fee for service) sets the prices it will pay. Medicare Advantage under bids Traditional Medicare (fee for services) and Medicare Advantage charges more by over coding. Medicare Advantage typically sets their pricing ahead of service and submits to CMS which pays out at that point in time for care. They then (in many cases) deny care, delay care, or give less care than for what they are paid.
Not all Medicare is the same. Government Medicare is less costly than private Medicare Advantage,
Run @December 10, 10:29 am
I hope you don’t think anything I have said disagrees with this. Otherwise I appreciate the additional information.
typos in the time reference to Runs post Dec 19, 10:59 am
The concept of Single Payer appeals to me mainly because the practice of tying healthcare benefits to employers, if not employment, has always seemed dubious. SP should easily fall into the category of ‘General Welfare’ which is constitutionally protected, supposedly. Income tax or wealth tax should pay for healthcare. However…
The label of ‘Socialized Medicine’, mainly because of the first word, has always been a non-starter in the Good Ol’ USA at large. This is another one of those curse-like problems that we seem to be stuck with. How do we change this?
It does seem that this attitude is beginning to fade among those born in the 21st Century, so perhaps there is some hope going forward.
Fred:
Just about the time I am dead, it will come to pass. I do not see this happening overnight. Hospitals and healthcare companies will resist it
Dobbs
the label “socialized medicine” was invented by the enemies of Medicare.
Because they had already made “socialism” a dirty word.
They won’t let it go away. They’d rather stage a coup. Your thin hope is just an excuse for doing nothing. although it is probably better that you personally should do nothing since you don’t understand the problem.
Arne,
yes I think you are right about that. I did not like writing this post because I do agree that healthcare and welfare need to be made more rational.
But I have dealt with Altman before, and I am reasonably sure she thinks using SS to bear all society’s burdens is the answer to everything. Including “there are an infinite number os solutions to SS funding.” Yes, but some solutions are better than others….to which her secret answer is “Yes, mine.”
Run,
I went back to what you have posted by Kip Sullivan on Single Payer and it mostly shows why we need something better than what we have. I suspect I agree that Single Payer is the way to go, but details matter. I see very little about the provision of healthcare that benefits from having a profit motive anywhere in the system.
I actually disagree with Dale about “as long as workers pay for it themselves” with respect to healthcare. I think the rich people who have made rules that allow the abuses of Medicare Advantage because they profit by it should pay more. I think the owners of businesses which work well with a profit motive also benefit from having a healthy, well-educated consumer base and should pay more.
Of course, what I think is fair makes little difference. What has happened to estate taxes make it quite clear that rich people can use their money to convince poorer people to support laws that are in the rich peoples favor.
Arne:
Ther are about a dozen article at AB about Kip’s call for Single Payer. Usually. I get 1st or 2nd crack at the, I think maybe it is time to repost them. Maybe make it Single Payer Week.
google took me to:
I did not take time for the video. I did not see text on how funding and transition would be handled, but I did not spend much time.
Arne:
That is a good series. Kip is talking to Ralph Nader. I need to look up the four elements of Single Payer which are here and are detailed in Kips writings. I also asked him the question. I am stuck in the detail. He is not. Lets see what he says. I did resurrect one post on drugs I did in 2020. It will be up in the morning.
Arne
I don’t mind being disagreed with, Is your reason that you think it is more “fair” if rich people pay more because they have more money, or because they have made the system unfair in the first place?
If the latter…then they have the power to resist your charging them more.
Arne, continued.
Meanwhile, with a “flat” tax that is capped the rich do pay more. They just don’t pay more than the insurance is worth t0 them. I would consider the fact that a person with 100,000 dollar income pays 10,000 per year, while a person who makes 20,000 per year pays 2000 for his insurance… the rich man is paying more. he could rationalize the “more” as the premium he is paying for insurance in case he becomes one of the “poor” later in life.
The reason for the “flat” tax instead of a head tax is to deal with the reality of income inequality. the poor simply can’t pay a premium high enough to pay for their own “expected” future costs…. the same reason income taxes are made “progressive,” but in the case of health care, like retirement insurance, I think the flat tax is “more fairer” because they are paying for their own individual needs. ‘the income tax pays for the needs of the country as a whole which are impossible to assign to individuals according to their degree of benefit.
We don’t make toll roads or gas taxes “progressive.” Nor cigarette taxes… though there are some liberal professors who think we should not tax cigarettes at all, because since poor people smoke more than rich people, a cigarette tax is inherently “regressive”… which is why I cringe when people start talking about progressive-regressive and who got the biggest piece of burfday cake. yes, we try to be fair…but when everyone has a different idea of what is fair it begins to sound pathological.
Social Security was implemented during a time when the US was in an economic mess of the worst sort ever experienced, as a sort of retirement program for impoverished people, paid for mostly (somewhat?) by them, when most were in fact impoverished. In the face of determined opposition from most of the well-to-do. On the whole, FDR & his brain trust did a commendable job.
Ever since, improvements have been tacked on, with some success. Medicare/Medicaid is perhaps the biggest of such. But resistance to changing the plan significantly puts its entire existence in jeopardy, obviously. The GOP has not given up. What to do? What to do?
Maybe implement broad-scale wealth taxation that is inescapable, and get past the pernicious & pervasive notion that this is nothing more than purely evil socialism, or worse. That would seem to be essential. Not going to happen anytime soon, until most of us old codgers are out of the picture, I’m afraid.
Dobbs
yep. get the rich to agree to that and all our problems will be solved.
or maybe we could get the honest rich to understand that the workers are paying for it themselves, so it is not “socialism” even though it has solved the problem of desperate poverty in old age for the last eighty years.
i would not be thinking “ad hominem” if you showed any sign have having read or understood anything I have said here.
However, when unemployment during the Depression was at it’s worst, most people were still employed, so that’s something, bellyahchin-wise.
“The worst unemployment experienced in the US took place during the Great Depression (1929-1933), when the unemployment rate reached 24.9%.”
(From out on the web)
Dobbs
yep only 25% unemployment. Nothing to worry about.
One of those 1/4 empty, three-quarters full kind of deals, I suppose.
Dobbs
I am sorry this nonsense appears in my inbox. Because I feel the need to answer it. I am going to try to just let other people make up their minds. If they think you are making any sense at all, there is nothing I can do for them anyway.
Dobbs asks
WHAT to do? WHAT to do?
Do what i have been saying to do for the last ten years:
RAISE THE PAYROLL TAX ONE DOLLAR PER WEEK PER YEAR
WHENEVER THE TRUSTEES REPORT PROJECTS “SHORT TERM FINANCIAL INADEQUACY.”
Since you have not listened, we have by now actually entered that “Short term financial inadequacy,” and while the ONE DOLLAR PER WEEK would still avoid LONG TERM ACTUARIAL DEFICIT, and make SS “solvent forever, it would probably be better to raise the payroll tax about two dollars per week per year for ten years…because that would end the “short term financial inadequacy” and stop all the shouting.
Did anybody hear me?
‘the fact that a person with 100,000 dollar income pays 10,000 per year, while a person who makes 20,000 per year pays 2000 for his insurance…’
No doubt a person who makes five times more than someone on the lower end of the economic spectrum also needs five times more to be happy, which is a fundamental right and must be respected & honored. And if this is true for those people, it also applies to someone making $1M, or $10M, or whatever. Call it ‘pursuit of happiness’.
Dobbs
no doubt. but this does not change the fact that “the rich” pay more for Social Security than “the poor”. if those rich do not end up poor by the time they retire their “extra” payments are what makes the insurance to those who end up very poor that enables them to escape the worst depths of poverty. system has worked very well for over eighty years. you should learn something about it.
It is said that when practically everyone owns a car & a refrigerator & a color tv, no one is really impoverished. So, stop yer bellyachin.
Dobbs
practically everyone. they can sleep in their cars, but where to they plug in the color TV when they are living on the street?
This will do the trick for ya.
DieHard 110 V 280 W Power Inverter
US homeless numbers stay about the same
AP – just in
President Joe Biden’s administration announced Monday it is ramping up efforts to help house people now sleeping on sidewalks, in tents and cars as a new federal report confirms what’s obvious to people in many cities: Homelessness is persisting despite increased local efforts.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said that in federally required tallies taken across the country earlier this year, about 582,000 people were counted as homeless — a number that misses some people and does not include those staying with friends or family because they do not have a place of their own. …
It could be that income inequality will eventually tear the US apart, but fortunately all those gun-owning patriots out there will see to it that this never happens.
Good talk and muchas gracias to Dale Coberly. Fortunately I am in very good health for my age because in the long run we are all screwed and then we are all dead. Someday…