Social Security

It's pretty much expected that everyone knows everything about you in today's privacy-free world. But it's still freaky to see how easily a business can crawl into your life. Elaine Miller, 61, recently was expecting a package from UPS. She called the company and asked whether she could find out a rough time frame for the delivery in case her signature was required. A rep said the package would arrive at Miller's Mar Vista home at some point between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. - not the most customer-friendly arrangement.

Like many Republicans - what's more, like many Americans - I regard Ronald Reagan as my political hero and inspiration. For conservatives who came of age in the 1960s and '70s, President Reagan offered a principled and compassionate argument for individual freedom and an equally compelling case for personal responsibility. In 1989, Reagan described his view of America "as a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity.

Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady on Thursday rejected a proposal to reduce Medicare catastrophic health insurance premiums that congressional analysts expect will generate a bigger surplus than is needed. Brady, in a letter to Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), said the insurance program "is literally in its first few months of life" and the Bush Administration wants to be sure it is not left with insufficient reserves. The new insurance program, approved by Congress last year, provides extended coverage for the costs of hospital and medical care and drug benefits.

Dear Liz : My mother is 65 and refuses to plan for retirement. She has worked for the same organization for almost 20 years and, despite my begging her over the last decade, has not contributed a dime to her 403(b). I am an only child in my late 30s and received no financial help from her from the age of 18. In addition, my father died when I was very young, leaving us fairly destitute with no life insurance. I feel that both of these legacies have contributed to my less-than-optimal financial situation.

Re "Fix Social Security, now," Editorial, April 25 It's hard to take this editorial seriously because it fails to talk about the Social Security payroll tax holiday enacted in 2010. If you want to fix Social Security, the first thing you need to look at is rolling back this tax break. With every extension of the payroll tax holiday, the prospect that Congress will ever restore the tax to its statutory 6.2% of covered income becomes increasingly remote. In case you haven't figured it out yet, this is the tax that funds Social Security, so it should be no surprise that Social Security will run into trouble if we don't pay it in full.

For a 77-year-old, Social Security is looking pretty spry today, the anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's signing of the Social Security Act in 1935. The program covers more than 54 million Americans, providing a dignified retirement and keeping the families of premature deceased workers out of poverty.  Among those who should be celebrating: Rep. Paul D. Ryan, R-Wisc., the newly-anointed GOP candidate for vice-president. As has been widely reported , Ryan's father died in 1986, when the future congressman was 16. The younger Ryan collected Social Security survivor benefits, which he put away for college, until the age of 18. Yet he returned the favor by proposing one of the most draconian plans to privatize Social Security in 2005.

Deciding when to start collecting Social Security retirement benefits is one of the most important financial decisions Americans face. Beginning too soon - or too late - can end up costing you tens of thousands of dollars, depending on how long you live. Some key things to consider: • You can start receiving Social Security payments at age 62, but the amount will be reduced 25% to 30% from what it would be at your "full" retirement age. If you were born in 1960 or later, your full retirement age is 67. For those born from 1943 to 1959, it's somewhere from age 66 to 66 years and 10 months.

Reporting from Dover, N.H. -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry told a voter in Dover, New Hampshire Thursday that he had no plans to change the Social Security system for those who are nearing the point where they would receive benefits.  "You don't have to worry about anything," Perry told an older man who asked him to explain his position during a visit to Harvey's, a coffee shop in Dover. "There's not going to be any changes in the program that we've got for folks that are your age. We'll have a conversation with the rest of the country about what is the age that we start transitioning away from the program we've got now. " "The folks who are either on or soon to be on, they don't have anything to worry about.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's proposal to trim Social Security's cost-of-living adjustments has sparked not only Democratic outrage, but Republican confusion. In the days since Obama put the idea in his 2014 budget, Republicans' reactions have included support, opposition and refusal to commit. The proposal was once a mainstay of the GOP's deficit-reduction overtures to the White House. House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that the idea, the so-called chained Consumer Price Index, “is the least we must do to begin to solve the problems in Social Security.” DOCUMENT: President Obama's 2014 budget But the chairman of the House Republican Congressional Committee, who is trying to preserve the party's majority in the House in the next election, called it a “shocking attack on seniors.” “You're trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors and I just think it's not the right way to go,” Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon told CNN.   That potentially off-message comment provoked swift rebuke from the powerful Club for Growth, the conservative advocacy group that supports the measure as a starting point for reining in spending on government entitlement programs.

Monthly Social Security payments will rise 1.5% next year, bringing the average benefit amount to about $1,288 after an annual cost-of-living adjustment, the Social Security Administration announced Wednesday. The 1.5% rise is the smallest increase since 2002 and is down from the 1.7% adjustment in 2012.  The annual cost-of-living adjustment is based on a consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers. Inflation has remained low in recent years, underscored by the latest government data which showed that inflation in September was up just 1.2% from the year before.

Dear Liz: I'm in my late 60s and plan to retire in about two years. I have a pension that will pay close to my current take-home income. I also have about $500,000 in annuities and IRAs. These plus Social Security make retirement look good. But right now finances are tight. Should I continue to put $1,300 a month into my retirement plan or use that money for expenses and travel now - while we're still relatively young? Answer: You appear to be in the fortunate position of being able to try a "practice retirement.

In my  Wednesday column , I described a vision of our future as imagined by economist Tyler Cowen : More rich people, more poor people and a smaller middle class; constant measurement of workers to help employers eliminate slackers; and “the creation of a new underclass,” including retirees clustered in shantytowns that resemble “the better dwellings you might find in a Rio de Janeiro favela .” Is there any way to...

A couple of well-heeled anchor-reporters for CNBC -- the type of people who need never beg for lunch dates among Wall Street bankers -- Friday batted around the supposed threat to the republic posed by hordes of seniors collecting Social Security benefits. Unfortunately for them, their interviewee was Damon Silvers, policy director for the AFL-CIO and one of the best informed and fiercest defenders of Social Security in Washington. If they listened, they learned something. The evidence is they didn't listen.

WASHINGTON -- As Democrats and Republicans prepare for negotiations over the next round of the scheduled budget cuts known as the sequester, incentives for both have swung toward a small deal, rather than the sort of “grand bargain” President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) once tried to negotiate. On the Democratic side, interest in a grand bargain that would reduce long-term deficits by cutting Social Security and Medicare and increasing tax revenue has faded.

To the chronicles of misbegotten corporate adventures with social media, we can add a new, sterling event. The anti-deficit lobbying organization Fix the Debt staged a question-and-answer chat on Twitter Thursday. Its goal presumably was to reach America's smartphone-savvy youth with its message that Social Security and Medicare payments to their grandparents are going to land them in the poorhouse a few decades from now.  It's fair to say that Fix the Debt got more than it bargained for. Twitterers from all over responded to the invitation with pointed, tactless and downright impolite questions.

Robert Marcum knew he had a problem when he found out he was dead. The tragic news arrived recently as he was trying to close a deal to buy property in Palm Springs. Marcum, 70, was informed that, according to his credit file, he'd passed away a couple of years ago. "No one had told me," he said. Looking more closely at his credit file, Glendale resident Marcum discovered that not only was he dead but that, when he was alive, he was apparently involved with a woman named Jean Thomson.

Dear Liz: Recently my mother passed away. My brother and I were fortunate enough to inherit a substantial amount of money from her life insurance. My brother and I do not want to spend this money and have placed the funds in brokerage accounts. My question is this: Because of the often-volatile market, is there a better way to invest this money? Should we take this money out of the market and save some of it in a bank? Answer: Your first task with a windfall is to determine your goal (or goals)