Social Security & Medicare
In reply to the discussion: Social Security: The Best and Worst Years To Be Born [View all]Shermann
(8,770 posts)I've been building my own retirement simulation models for years and have picked up on a number of interesting things. I ran these numbers myself, so I guess it is a DU original story. I'd welcome a peer review of it.
The inflation gap is odd and unfair, but it normally affects everybody the same way when inflation hums along at the same rate. Now we have two blips in the modern era, one high and one low. So, directly comparing these two outliers is revealing.
On paper it is an easy fix, just start COLA at age 60 and retroactively bump everybody's benefit. While that would be a boon for retirees, how many billions would that cost?
Taxes on SS are similarly flawed, there are fixed basis values which are never adjusted for inflation. So more and more of retirees' benefits are subject to taxes every year. Again, how many billions would a fix cost the government?