Things to do for social security

[nancylebov]

This is an answer to an article by bradhicks. I recommend his lj--he's one of the more interesting editorial writers I know of.

STAND-ALONE THOUGHTS

There's one other possibility--more research into aging. I suspect that quite a bit can be done to keep people healthy longer. The first promising bit has happened already. Tweaking mice genes so that they have more anti-oxidant in their mitochnondria makes them live 20% longer, and it seems to include retarding aging. This is a long way from something you can buy at the drugstore but it's pointing in the right direction.

Letting immigrants in is the shorter-term, more certain path, but it's going to wear thin if current trends continue. Everyone's birthrates are dropping. All it seems to take is education for women and access to birth control.

In any case, I agree that we should let more people be legal immigrants, though it's more on moral and logical grounds. The logic is that I hate hearing, "Oooh, those awful people, it costs so much to have them around. Let's deny them as many economic opportunities as possible so they won't be able to afford to pay for much." The moral side is partly that I don't see that A has the right to tell B that they may not employ or rent to C and partly that it offends me that restricted immigration makes atrocities and slavery much easier. Afaik, illegal immigrants are the only source of slaves in developed countries. And it's almost amusing that the "family values" party supports adding a severe risk of death to people who want to both visit and support their families. Of course, so does the "compassion" party.

ANSWERS TO THE ARTICLE

Getting back to your article, they already have raised the retirement age. Not much, but it's 67 if you're born after 1960.

Illegal immigrant buy stuff, too, though less than if they were better paid. Perhaps more interestingly, their social security payments can be ripped off. (There may be something in the Bible against stealing from poor people, or possibly against stealing in general. I suspect there's nothing about illegal immigrants being an imposition that it's ok to mistreat.) Many employers try to make illegal employees fit into the record-keeping requirements, and that means withholding SS payments. Keep an eye out for the lawsuits when illegal immigrants have enough power/respectibility to try to collect that money. Meanwhile, I've heard that illegal immigrant payments cover about 10% of the shortfall.

AFTERTHOUGHTS
I see that I let my libertarian principles slip--I'm not addressing whether Social Security is a good idea in the first place, nor whether insufficient demand is actually a problem. As for the latter, I have been mulling the question of how a free market economy would react to people basically having enough stuff, and whether it's really a problem.

We also get the question of what "enough stuff" means--I suspect we're getting closer to that point, and there's going to be more and cheaper stuff in the future. Not only will manufacturing get cheaper, but ebay has made selling used stuff more efficient. At this point, we're seeing many of the babyboomer's parents houses get broken up, and the babyboomers possibly even larger stashes are going to be heading towards the market (or the dumpster) in the forseeable future.

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

>Illegal immigrant buy stuff, too, though less than if they were better paid. Perhaps more interestingly, their social security payments can be ripped off. (There may be something in the Bible against stealing from poor people, or possibly against stealing in general. I suspect there's nothing about illegal immigrants being an imposition that it's ok to mistreat.)

There is also something in the Bible against mistreating the stranger who lives among you, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt. That's in addition to the more general rules you mention

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Good point. My take on it has been that it's unseemly for those of us whose forebearers were economic refugees/moved here for a better life to pull up the ladder now that we're comfortably ensconced.

[madfilkentist]

On the other hand, there's Joshua Ch. 9. In summary, Joshua found that Gibeonites were living among the Hebrews secretly because they were afraid they'd be killed if they revealed themselves. Joshua made them temple serfs. Granted, that was better than his usual first impulse, which was genocide.

On a more contemporary note, I'm wondering what the actual effects of "Real ID" will be on illegal immigrants. They won't just evaporate because they can't legally get ID's. I expect that the legislation will create an underworld with less protection and more crime, existing in uneasy cooperation with local authorities in some places and thus creating corruption. With so many people having a relatively excusable reason for not possessing an ID, it will be easier for terrorists to move around unnoticed.

Retirement

[nwl.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand where you're starting from in your discussion. An illegal immigrant is that - illegal, under the radar, not part of the system. Due to being illegal, the person doesn't not have an SSN. From that follows that since the person is illegal and doesn't have an SSN, an employer doesn't pay the SSN tax into the system, because, legally, the person doesn't exist. If a person doesn't have an SSN, to what identifier would the tax be applied?

It is my understanding that much of the work done by illegal immigrants is strictly cash, so the employer doesn't have to worry about taxes. Just juggle a few numbers and it's covered.

A more relevant question might be it inquire if SS tax is collected from guest workers, who are, ideally, here temporarily for employment. According to what I've read (and in my experience) many guest workers stay long enough to get immigrant status and become citizens, thus contributing to SS. But I don't know if SS tax is collected while one is a guest worker.

I would guess that legal immigrants, who have an SSN and are in the system, pay into the SS system, like regular citizens, as the assumption is they will be here to retire.

Re: Retirement

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about the question of where illegal immigrants get their social security numbers, I'd just heard about their contributions being taken from them.

Thanks to the gloriousness of google, here's the answer: they buy fake ss numbers.

Re: Retirement

[twistedchick]

The flourishing trade in fake ID includes fake SS numbers. It all depends on how much you pay for it, I've been told.

Re: Retirement

[nwl.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I don't want to register just to read an article.

It seems to me that if the SSN is fake, it would be discovered pretty quickly when the employer pays the tax associated to the number. Or someone would get a fake attribution. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a check for this in the SS system. In working for a company who made 401(k) software, we heard about numerous problems with SSNs and wrong attribution. In one case, a father worked at a company and when his son, a junior, joined, someone in the office decided that the different SSN was a mistake and entered the son's contributions to the father's account. They were paid at different times, so it took a while to sort out who had what when the mistake was discovered. It was quite a mess. I have no idea what they did tax-wise.

SSN for undocumented workers

[(Anonymous)]

This is David Bellamy.

I have either read or heard that sometimes
illegal aliens use the SSN of a friend or
someone else to work, so that that person
gets the credit for their contributions. I
don't know where I got this...CNN or one
of the periodicals I read??

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Aging research makes the problem worse in many ways, not better. Quite aside from the question of "when is retirement age?", we need to understand that there just isn't as much work as there are people to do it. That's the whole point of all this automation stuff. A lot of "jobs" that exist today, exist solely for the purpose of keeping fiat money churning around and around, and there still aren't enough "jobs." We need a new economic paradigm that - with all due respect to your libertarian principles, sorry but - admits that there isn't enough real work, and makework is worse than none.