“People are getting angry,” she says. “These low COLAs aren’t anywhere near what they need to be.”
Mary Johnson, a Social Security and Medicare policy analyst for the The Senior Citizen League quoted in a MarketWatch article 10-7-20
I’d like a big bump in my Social Security, I’d like a COLA on my pension too and if my savings earned a higher interest rate that too would be great.
But what about our children and grandchildren? What about their taxes and inflation created by the current generation spending like drunken sailors?
We seniors have no right to be angry. The generation now collecting Social Security had their shot at earning, spending and saving.
Yes, there are exceptions, there are people who had great misfortune, but they are probably not the ones complaining.
There are also people who were low income all their lives and when you stop working it doesn’t get any better. But those folks often get other forms of assistance.
Now as to the great majority who were middle or upper middle class all their lives. They have no excuse. Aside from the exceptions noted, there is no excuse for retirees not to have sufficient assets to allow them to at least offset the ravages of inflation and they certainly should not be living on SS alone.
The lesson for living within your means after saving for the future is before you.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Americans are a bunch of complainers, we complain about the weather, the price of everything and the amount of the SS COLA. Many do not realize that adjusted for inflation we are paying less for gasoline, (53 cents = $2.95 today), electronics and many other things than we paid in 1974, the year I graduated from high school and had to start paying my way in life. I filled up my gas tank in Tulsa, OK yesterday for $1.63 per gallon. I am amazed at the number of people posting on AARP that just do not get it. No one paid for their SS benefits, if they really dig into the numbers. Adjusted for inflation my employers and I paid $86,000 in FICA taxes in the 27 years that I had taxable SS income from 1971 to 2006. My average income during those years was $12,000 with my highest year of USAF income in 1994 being $35,000. But only $25,495 was taxed for SS. My wife and I started SS benefits at age 62, $1,288 total benefit. My wife’s . spousal benefit at 62 increased our benefit to $189 above my FRA benefit of $1,090 per month. We will have everything paid in FICA taxes back at age 66.56. Most people get everything paid in FICA taxes back in 8 to 10 years, many a lot sooner, and they get it back in inflation adjusted dollars, but they still complain.
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I’d be happy if income taxes on SS were removed.
Btw… I don’t see any popups. I never see any ads on any website ever. No, I don’t have an ad block. Maybe it’s because my old desktop doesn’t have all the latest bells and whistles. I’m just happy to be blessed!
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How about turning off the Norton pop up associated with your site ? Simply sad…….
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It’s a pain I know. I get it too. Don’t know where it’s coming from.
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I like to quote Murray D. Lincoln, in the book Vice President in Charge of Revolution, 1960, who wrote:
“We have within our own hands the tools with which we can fashion our own destinies.” No where is that any more true than retirement preparation. For example, anyone born in 1957 is now eligible to collect Social Security. Many/most will reach Social Security Normal Retirement Age (66, 6 months) by year end 2024. Assuming he/she has always had a median salary for a full time worker – currently in excess of $52,000 a year (average of men and women, Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm), and assuming he/she contributed the maximum to an Individual Retirement Account every year since he/she was eligible (1982), and had he/she earned an average rate of return of just 5%/year, he/she could convert that account balance into a single life annuity which, when combined with Social Security, would provide a 90+% replacement rate. Every wage earner has been eligible to contribute to an IRA every year starting in 1982.
Most American workers had, and have today, and, unless they change the rules (which they might) will have in the future all the tax preferred retirement savings opportunities that they need for retirement. The only workers who don’t have access to a retirement savings plan opportunity sufficient to enable replacement of pre-retirement income are the highest paid among us, and who cares about them?
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