We Must Save It!

One of the big canards that bothers me in current political conversations is that Social Security needs "fixing". I read that as conservatives wanting to start dismantling the safety net.

Anyways, the Big Picture tackles the "issue", although Barry does make some predictions that seem accurate to me about three major changes he sees in Social Security's future:

1) Your Retirement Age Will Go Up: And up and up and up. I expect to see a staggered from 65 (66 and 67 relative to birth date), to 68 then 70 then 72 years old. France just raised their retirement age to (tee hee) 62.
2) Your Taxes Are Going to Go Up: The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) is the payroll tax that funds Social Security. These are likely to increase, in one of two ways: Percentage paid, and gross wage amount taxed. I suspect it is the latter that will be targeted first.
Currently, FICA taxes amount to 15.30% (7.65% paid by the employee and 7.65% paid by the employer) of income. That is a big chunk of anyone’s salary, and raising that is going to be met with a fierce pushback. Perhaps a minor increase in total FICA percentage might be enacted.
However, the gross wage amount tops out at $106,800. That cap is very likely to increase — slowly at first, in COLA increments, than in greater amounts. My guess is this will top out at $200k within a decade, and a million dollars the following decade.
More controversial are other taxes that could fund SS.
3) You Will Be Subject to a Means Test: The third way SS will get its house in order will be to stop making payments to people who don’t need the money for retirement.
The political rhetoric will sound like this: Social Security was set up as an insurance fund. Just as if you don’t receive any compensation for Fire Insurance unless you house burns down, you won’t get social security unless your financial house is in ruins.

Interesting stuff...