Budget Battles
-
Dems Zero In on a Rapidly Shrinking Agenda
-
No New Tax Hikes? Sinema Sends Dems Scrambling
-
Biden, Dems Take an Axe to Their Spending Plan
-
Biden Pushes Democrats on Spending Deal
-
Manchin and Sanders Brawl Over Dem Agenda
-
Biden: ‘We’re Not Going to Get $3.5 Trillion’
-
Democrats Battle Over Cuts to Biden’s Agenda
-
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...
-
Number of the Day: $23 a Month
By Michael RaineyThe Social Security Administration on Thursday said the cost-of-living adjustment for 2020 would be 1.6%. That translates to a bump of about $23 on the average monthly benefit of $1,460. The 2020...
-
The Case for Giving Social Security to Children
By Michael RaineyUS social welfare programs reduced poverty by about two-thirds overall in 2018, according to an analysis of Census data by Matt Bruenig of the left-leaning People’s Policy Project. Bruenig offers a...
-
Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan to Expand Social Security
By Michael Rainey and Yuval RosenbergElizabeth Warren released a plan Thursday to expand Social Security and raise benefit payments. Warren’s plan would: Immediately increase benefit payments by $200 a month. If enacted, Warren’s plan...
-
More Progress in Tackling Poverty, but Meager Gains for the Middle Class
The poverty rate fell for the fourth straight year in 2018, dropping to 11.8%, the lowest level since 2001, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. In all, some 38 million people were living in poverty...
-
Op-Ed of the Day: Fighting the Next Recession Now
By The Fiscal Times StaffJason Furman, the former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama, has some advice for Congress: Start preparing for the next recession now. In a Wall Street...