Budget Battles
-
Social Security Benefits Will See Biggest Boost in Nearly 40 Years
By Michael RaineySocial Security benefits will increase by 5.9% in 2022, the largest increase since 1982, the Social Security Administration announced Wednesday. “This would be the highest COLA that most...
-
Social Security Trust Fund to Run Out by 2034, Report Says
Social Security won’t be able to pay full benefits by 2034, one year earlier than projected last year, unless Congress acts to address the program’s finances, according the annual report released...
-
Why Biden Fired the Head of the Social Security Administration
President Joe Biden on Friday fired Social Security Administration Commissioner Andrew Saul, a Trump appointee who had drawn criticism from Democrats and advocacy groups for seeking to restrict...
-
Social Security Less Damaged by Covid Recession Than Experts Feared
By Michael RaineyAs the Covid crisis took hold in early 2020, budget experts worried that rapidly disappearing jobs and plummeting tax receipts would put a serious dent in Social Security’s finances. But according to...
-
What Trump and Biden Would Mean for Social Security
After years of warnings about the financial challenges facing Social Security, the coronavirus pandemic and its economic effects mean that the time to get serious about ensuring that full benefits...
-
Trump’s Payroll Tax Plan Fizzles
President Trump’s payroll tax deferral plan is fizzling. The plan , meant to boost workers’ incomes by allowing their employers to postpone collection of the 6.2% employee share of the tax funding...
-
Social Security Trust Fund Depleted by 2031: CBO
By Michael RaineyThe Social Security Old Age and Survivors Insurance fund will be depleted by 2031, according to a report released Wednesday by the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO said the surplus in the fund,...
-
Trump’s Payroll Tax Deferral Gets Rolling
By Michael RaineyThe IRS issued guidance late Friday that provides details on President Trump’s executive action to allow employers to stop collecting Social Security taxes for employees starting September 1 through...
-
Trump’s Payroll Tax Plan Is Hung Up in a Dispute With the IRS: Report
By Michael RaineyPresident Trump’s effort to suspend employee Social Security taxes starting September 1 is hung up over a dispute over who should be responsible for making the tax payments once the suspension is...
-
Terminating Payroll Tax Could Wipe Out Social Security by 2023, Chief Actuary Says
Eliminating payroll taxes could drain the Social Security trust funds within a few years if no alternative source of funding is provided, the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary said in a...
-
Biden, Sanders Clash Again Over Social Security
The most heated moments in Sunday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate came during an exchange between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders over Social Security. For months now, Sanders has slammed...
-
Trump’s Coronavirus Tax Cut Falls Flat on Capitol Hill
President Trump promised Monday evening that his administration would quickly announce “very major,” very “substantial” and “dramatic” steps to boost the economy in the face of the coronavirus threat...
-
Sanders Releases Funding Options for His Big Plans
By Michael RaineyFacing questions about how he intends to pay for an ambitious policy agenda that includes single-payer health care, student debt cancellation and an expansion of Social Security, Vermont Sen. Bernie...
-
What's Missing From Mike Bloomberg’s Social Security Plan
Democratic presidential contender Mike Bloomberg rolled out a vague plan Sunday that calls for shoring up Social Security’s finances, expanding benefits for the poorest and creating a government-...
-
The American Dream Alive and Well in ... Finland?
By Michael RaineyBernie Sanders’s opponents routinely accuse him of being a “socialist” bent on importing nefarious foreign values to the U.S., and President Trump took that approach one step further this past...