Showing posts with label Social Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Security. Show all posts

86M Private-Sector Workers Sustain 148M Benefit Takers

by Terence P. Jeffrey.  Buried deep on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau is a number every American citizen, and especially those entrusted with public office, should know. It is 86,429,000. That is the number of Americans who in 2012 got up every morning and went to work — in the private sector — and did it week after week after week. ... MORE

Can Government Make You Pay A Relative's Debt?

by Wyatt Andrews.      Whose going to stop them? Two months ago, Mary Grice, a career employee at the Food and Drug Administration, was notified the U.S. Treasury had confiscated her state and federal tax refunds totaling $4,500. The government had taken the money before she knew there was a problem. "To be honest, I was ticked off,"  ... MORE

Nine Reasons Why The Minimum Wage Is A Terrible Idea

by Ira Stoll.          President Obama and congressional Democrats are pressing to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Here are nine reasons why that’s a bad idea. 1. It’s a big country. The costs of living, especially housing, vary widely in America from state to state and city to city. If the point of raising the minimum wage is to    ... MORE

Veronique de Ruby: Slouching Toward Bankruptcy

Its dangerous to put off Social Security reform.    In November 2004, President George W. Bush was re-elected after campaigning on personal accounts for Social Security. It was unfair, he argued at the time, to make a generation of young people pay into a system that's going broke. Bush's plan promised to make the program solvent,     ... MORE

Victor Davis Hanson: Young People Have Been Had

Hornswoggled by hope and change.     There are all sorts of time bombs embedded within Obamacare. Will we force doctors to treat the millions of new Medicaid patients who are signing up for services that can be only partially reimbursed? How exactly will the IRS collect penalties from millions of off-the-books youth who choose not to buy      ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Do Americans Prefer Deception?

Advice on how to never go broke.      There’s more to the deceit and dishonesty about Social Security and Medicare discussed in my recent columns. Congress tells us that one-half (6.2 percent) of the Social Security tax is paid by employees and that the other half is paid by employers, for a total of 12.4 percent. Similarly, we are told that ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Congressionally Duped Americans

The ponzi scheme entitlement.      Last week's column, "Is There a Way Out?", generated quite a few responses, some a bit angry. Some people were offended by my reference to Social Security and Medicare as entitlements or handouts. They said that they worked for 45 years and paid into Social Security and Medicare and how dare I refer to     ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Is There A Way Out?

The inevitable road of legalized theft.         According to a recent Fox News poll, 73 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, up 20 points from 2012. Americans sense that there’s a lot going wrong in our nation, but most don’t have a clue about the true nature of our problem. If they had a clue, most would have little ... MORE

Sheldon H. Danziger: The Mismeasure Of Poverty

We are officially losers in the war on poverty.      THE Census Bureau reported yesterday that the poverty rate in America held stable between 2011 and 2012, at about 15 percent. According to the official measure, poverty today is higher than it was in 1973, when it reached a historical low of 11.1 percent.  To many, this dismaying fact     ... MORE       

U.S. Debt Obligations Reach $70 Trillion

by Wynton Hall.    A new study by University of California-San Diego economics professor James Hamilton finds that the United States has over $70 trillion in off-balance sheet liabilities--an amount nearly six times the on-balance-sheet debt figure. The Treasury debt outstanding is $16.74 trillion. Of that, $4.84 trillion is money the U.S. owes itself.      ... MORE

Emily Goff: Cut Government Spending To Help Economy?

Majority says yes.    A recent Rasmussen poll (subscription required) found that 65 percent of likely voters want the government to cut spending to help alleviate the country’s economic woes. Four years after the official end of the recession in June 2009, the economy is growing sluggishly. As The Wall Street Journal reports today, the     ... MORE