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Monday, December 30, 2024

Social Security and the End of the Age of Responsibility

Background

On December 21st, Congress reiterated its disinterest in fiscal prudence. While its free-spending inclinations have long been obvious, the affliction is certainly getting worse, illustrating a broader surrender to populism.

On December 21st, Congress passed the cheerily named "Social Security Fairness Act". With this act, they dismantled a 41-year-old, reasonable compromise passed overwhelmingly by a Democratic Congress and Republican Senate and signed into law by Ronald Reagan.

The Reasonable Provisions Being Repealed

If two people both worked a fast-food job part-time for their whole lives but one of those people also had a full-time government job with a lifetime pension that pays more than Social Security, while the other one never held another job, should they receive the same Social Security benefit?

While explanations of what this act does immediately defy a normal person's interest, the rationale behind the WEP and GPO provisions is eminently sensible.

Social Security was designed during the Great Depression to ensure that everyone was eligible for some income and a retirement in their later years. It would reduce any necessity for people to work the entirety of their lives. Moreover, it was intended to provide proportionally more for low-income workers than high-income workers. Like the progressive tax structure, the formula used to calculate benefits, was more favorable to low-income workers.

With taxes, lower income workers pay a lower percentage of their income, but with Social Security, it works in the reverse direction. Social Security basically is designed to replace a percentage of your income in retirement, and for lower-income workers, that percentage is higher. What the designers of Social Security didn't account for, however, are people who split their working lives between a Social Security-eligible job and a Social Security-exempt job. Readers may not be aware, but there are certain jobs, generally government jobs, where workers pay into and receive a government pension in lieu of Social Security. They do not pay Social Security taxes, and they do not receive Social Security benefits.

The progressivity of the formula would have worked as intended as long as people were in one or the other, but a problem arose because some people worked a Social Security job for part of their lives and a non-Social Security job for another part. Even if the worker worked full-time her whole life and received her full government pension in retirement, the Social Security formula assumed she spent half her life unemployed, and replaced a high percentage of her income as it was designed to do to support low income workers.

The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) was designed to address that. It didn't remove her Social Security benefits entirely, but it adjusted them down to account for the fact that this isn't a low income person, and so shouldn't receive the favorable benefit calculation that was intended for them. It was entirely reasonable, aligned with the program's intent, and improved the financial outlook.

The Perception of Unfairness

Unfortunately, these provisions created a perception of unfairness. It meant two people who paid the same amount into Social Security could receive different benefits. This outcome offended an intuitive sense of fairness. Of course, in the broader sense, it was supposed to be unfair, the way progressive taxes are unfair. Rich people pay more taxes because they're better able to afford it. Likewise, two people who paid the same into Social Security shouldn't get the same benefit if one of those people was poor and had no other source of income.

The Effect

The average pensioner, who, for the last forty years, received reduced Social Security benefits given their pension income, retires at 62, three years earlier than people on Social Security. And for income, 61% of the people whose Social Security benefits were cut due to WEP are earning more in retirement than the average Social Security beneficiary. Nearly 1/3 of the people who will get a Social Security raise are already earning more than twice as much from their pension.

Nearly one third of people who will get a Social Security boost are making more than two times the average Social Security recipient.

This is an entirely unnecessary change in Social Security, but it again highlights how political culture has changed. Forty years ago, elected officials had enough wherewithal to say no to their constituents, that the greater good required some sacrifice, that not everyone could benefit in all things in perpetuity. That restraint has been dwindling ever since.

Republicans used to at least talk about cutting ballooning, unpaid-for entitlements, but have completely abandoned that because it was hurting them. During the presidential campaign, both candidates promised to expand tax credits and cut taxes for important groups. No one mentioned cutting spending or the debt.

Fifty years of increased deficit spending with no adverse consequences has taught the public and the politicians seeking their votes to make ever-growing promises unconcerned with the eventual bill.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Expanding Social Security is a Bad Idea

Key Takeaways

• Expanding Social Security in the way Democrats are proposing would harm Americans in multiple ways
• It will expand government (both spending and taxes) to historic proportions
• It will hinder economic growth, resulting in at least a 1.1% reduction in GDP
• It will destroy billions, maybe trillions of dollars in wealth accumulation by crowding out high-income earners' retirement savings

In late January, Bernie Sanders met with President Biden in an effort to maneuver the current discussion about Social Security toward Sanders's preferred policy of a greatly expanded tax and transfer apparatus.

Sander's plan, while not provided in the detail required to do a full analysis, is to expand the payroll tax (and the Social Security retirement benefits) to cover incomes beyond the current max of $160,000. His opening offer is to pull in all income above $250,000; but some Democrats, mindful of Biden's campaign promise, want to extend only to incomes above $400,000. Not only that, but Sanders wants to tax investment income for Social Security, too.

Economy-Wide Effects

A score of The Social Security 2100 Act, which is not the same as Sanders's plan but was inspired by it, finds that this proposal will increase taxes as a % of GDP by 4.4 percentage points, and will increase spending by 6.2 percentage points.

Currently, federal taxes represent 20% of GDP and federal spending represents approximately 25%. This proposal would increase federal spending by 25%! It would increase taxes by 22%!

This proposal to expand Social Security, by itself, would increase the size of government by 25% and result in a government where nearly half of all federal spending goes to 20% of the population

Right now, 31% of the federal budget goes towards Social Security and Medicare--nearly one third. Meanwhile, 17% of the country is 65 years old or older. This proposal would make that benefit to population ratio even more lopsided.

I would be curious to see a rigorous analysis of this, but just including the Social Security changes would bring the 31% figure up to 37.2%--i.e. 37.2% of the federal budget would be dedicated to two programs--Social Security and Medicare. On top of that Medicare is expected to expand due both to increased health care costs and more beneficiaries as the baby boom generation continues to age. Does the nation really want an economic policy geared so heavily towards one demographic group?

At the same time, analysts also believe that this proposal would shrink the economy as a whole. The well-known Penn-Wharton model projects that the Social Security 2100 Act would shrink the economy 1.1% by 2050 and increasing over time.1

This proposal would shrink the economy by 1.1% by 2050 and even more the longer it's in effect.

Effects for Retirees

For a person who makes $300,000 every year from 30 until retirement. Every dollar they divert from their retirement will reduce their nest egg by over $10. Sanders wants to take another chunk of that person's salary every year. For someone earning $300,000, that would be $6,200.2 If all of that money that is now going to Uncle Sam was originally intended for retirement, he has just lost $63,000 from his nest egg. And that's just the taxes from a single year. Over 36 years, that adds up to be an $885,000 hole in their retirement account.

By trading a 6.5% return for a <2% return, Americans could lose $885,000 from retirement.

What is that $885k worth? Well, using the 4% rule, that would generate income of $35k/year for the rest of his life and leave a sizeable chunk for his heirs. But surely, now that he's paying so much more to Social Security, he'll get a great return from that, right? An additional $50k of annual income, after going through the Social Security formula, would produce a Social Security annual benefit of $51,469. That's total. Under the current rules, his benefit would be $43,970.

But, as I mentioned, the $35k income that the high-earner could expect in his retirement if he simply invests it in an index fund leaves a sizeable chunk leftover when he dies. We could better compare the two scenarios by assuming he depletes his retirement nest egg by the time he dies. If he dies at 87, the average life expectancy, and planned perfectly to have a steady income that ran out when he died, his annual retirement income generated only from the additional money Bernie Sanders wants him to pay in payroll taxes, would be $73,640.

In summary, this person will have just lost $73,600 in retirement income from investments, and Sanders plan will replace that with an additional $7,500 per year of Social Security Benefits. So, in effect, the Sanders plan would ensure that everyone making more than $150,000 is considerably worse off. Not just from the taxes themselves but in their retirement. It's also important to understand that the amount lost is not going to lower income beneficiaries, because most of this money came from the higher returns from investments. Those will no longer be in play.

Sanders's plan will erase 90% of affected retirees' income--not redistribute--erase.

By itself, that is greater than his entire Social Security benefit even with the expansion. In fact, there would be more money to go around for everyone if Social Security required high earners simply to invest that money, and then taxed the proceeds. At least then, the government wouldn't be destroying as significant a chunk of wealth.

Wrap-Up

Democrats spend every day talking about the great things they could do by increasing taxes on the wealthy. Is increasing Social Security benefits the best thing to do? Especially when expanding Social Security will end up shrinking the economy and limiting options?

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Footnotes

1Note that Prominent Democratic economics disagree.
2For the purpose of this illustration, I'm assuming that Sanders's plan will not tax income between 150 and 250k, but will begin taxing at 250 and above. So a person with a $300,000 annual income would have an additional $50k subject to the Social Security tax. Obviously, all of these numbers are in flux, and are meant to be representative of the effect.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Not Enough COLA

Main Takeaways:

• Even with Cost of Living Adjustment, Social Security Beneficiaries fall behind because of inflation.
• Because inflation is cumulative and continuous and COLA is once a year, beneficiaries' real payments are falling throughout the year.
• The average beneficiary actually lost almost $800 because of inflation.

Background

It should come as no surprise that many government programs that involve payments (either to or from the government) are indexed to inflation. If you pay attention when you do your taxes, the tax brackets are updated every year, as are the standard deductions, 401k contribution limits, and more. Indexing the tax code was signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1981 and took effect in 1985. Before that, as prices rose and incomes grew to keep pace, taxpayers' effective tax rates would go up even if their real incomes stayed the same. Indexing fixed that problem.

Government payments would also be affected by inflation, but this would be more direct. In the 1970s, as inflation grew, Social Security recipients found that their checks were buying less and less. In 1975, cost of living adjustments (COLA) began being made to Social Security payments to ameliorate that problem for the nation's retirees. The first adjustment in 1975 was 8.0%. In 1980, the highest adjustment ever was made to the payments--14.3%.

In the 1980s and on, inflation ebbed and fell from prominence as an issue. In fact, there was no adjustment at all either 2009, 2010, or 2015. In fact, in 2009, the inflation rate was negative, so seniors essentially got a raise.

Now it's 2022, and inflation has returned with a vengeance. Last week, we found out just how large the adjustment would be--8.7%, the largest in more than 40 years. This will put more than $140 into retirees' pockets every month.

The White House is celebrating this historic increase.

Thanks to President Biden, Social Security checks are going up while Medicare premiums are going down.

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 24, 2022

While the White House is trying to take credit for a policy signed into law by his second most infamous predecessor. It also escapes him (and many voters undoubtedly), that what he's actually taking credit for is the high inflation itself.

While the White House and news outlets claim that the adjustment will put approximately $140 in the average recipient's pocket every month going forward, in fact it will actually just bring retirees back to where they were a year ago. So, yes it's an additional $140 compared to the month before, but in real terms, it's $0 more than the year before

And because this adjustment is made only once a year, since inflation is rising throughout the year, retirees in fact have fallen behind, even after including the additional $140! From January through November prices are rising for retirees yet their benefits remain the same, so they must purchase their groceries with less money. Just because the checks are adjusted in December and then onward, this does not make up for the fact that their bills have been increasing all year long.

As an illustration, imagine someone receives a monthly benefit of $1500 from Social Security. (This is not far from the actual average).

Each month, your benefit buys less and less, until December, when it is adjusted up and then the payment catches up with your costs of living, but only going forward. You're still in the hole.

In the hypothetical example above, the recipient would lose $761, in real terms, over the course of the year before SS adjusted the payment to account for inflation.

Using actual Social Security data, the average beneficiary will lose just under $800, in real terms because of 2022 inflation. As the White House tweet says: Thanks to President Biden.

Notes: For actual calculations, I used the CPI-E, a price index created exclusively to track prices for retirees. Using CPI-U would actually lead to an even higher number. I also used the average payment from December 2021. The average payment increases every month slightly due to changes in the composition of beneficiaries. Finally, for October, November, and December inflation numbers, which have not yet been reported, I used the average inflation for the most recent three months as a forecast.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

One Giant Leap for a Liberal

Part II of ACA Court Case Post

Necessary and Proper

The argument here is that Congress has the authority to regulate the health care market. More specifically, it has the power to require insurance companies to accept all potential insurees. To do this however, it needs to force all citizens to obtain insurance. Otherwise people will wait until they need medical care and get insurance for it. Therefore, Congress has the authority to force all citizens to obtain insurance.

Let's start with a clear example of the Necessary and Proper clause that few would argue with. The Constitution explicitly grants the federal government the power to print and coin money. Obviously, to print and coin money, the government needs equipment, therefore Congress is authorized to purchase such equipment.

There are a few distinctions to make between these two situations. First, the government needs to be granted a clear power. The power to coin money is enumerated in Article 1 Section 8. Couldn't be clearer. The power to regulate the health care sector is much less clear. Healthcare is never mentioned in the Constitution. I (and strict constructionists) would debate this power, but it has by now been presumed by most, so we'll go with it.

Now, is the questionable law "necessary and proper?" In the case of coinage, I can't imagine another way to coin money than to purchase the equipment that does so. So I would say it's necessary. Is it proper? There's little in the Constitution that might be construed to argue otherwise.

Is an insurance mandate necessary? If it doesn't exist, can the remainder of the law function? I would have to say yes, but not well. Can you still force insurers to accept all customers? Yes. However, prices will likely increase greatly. I'd say it's an extremely helpful but not necessary law.

Is it proper? There's really nowhere in the Constitution that I know of that makes it improper. I don't think it is explicitly outlawed anywhere else, so I would have to say it is proper.

I recognize that this is probably the hardest issue to argue because I'm up against decades of precedents and laws that I believe are illegal but have built a defense that won't go down without continuous relentless debate. We're nowhere near that yet.

He concludes by discussing the implications of an unconstitutional finding on these grounds, that then the EPA and private Social Security Accounts would be illegal. Environmental issues are clearly interstate issues as it's impossible to confine problems of one state to that state only. Maybe it's not enumerated, but this is exactly the kind of issue the federal government is supposed to address. Social Security Accounts, however, are more interesting. The government already forces everyone to contribute to a retirement account. Private accounts would just enable these citizens to direct their funds to certain investments. I think this issue could be debated.